


Out in the Open

by Skeli



Series: Out in the Open Series [1]
Category: Mass Effect, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bisexual Male Character, Character Development, Explicit Language, Female Friendship, First Contact War, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Male-Female Friendship, Multi, Original Character Death(s), Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Psychological Trauma, Some Romance, Suicidal Thoughts, Survivor Guilt, only briefly though, sort of survival horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-04
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-10 08:13:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 40,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12907845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skeli/pseuds/Skeli
Summary: "Could you repeat that?" Marianne's voice was hoarse."Yes, ma'am. We are at war," the Ulysses' officer obliged.There was a heavy silence. No one spoke, but their minds where whirling, attempting to comprehend how truly astounding that statement was. Salome thought it might just be the most incredible thing she'd ever heard. She wanted to puke.____________________While out searching for a new planet for Earth to colonize, biologist Salome Haw and her crew are pulled into a war no one saw coming, and ends up in a place she could never have predicted.





	1. Silence

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is a First Contact War Au from the perspective of a scientist drawn into it without warning. I've tried to write this as realistically as I could from the perspective of a survivor who has no idea what she's up against. The turians are sort of like boogeymen luring in the dark for her, and are only seen briefly until they make their grand reveal in the later chapters. Toward the end, however, you'll get a lot of aliens. With that in mind, please enjoy.

 Chapter 1- Silence

Salome lifted her head to gaze above her. The skylight overhead revealed countless stars peaking out of the inky blackness. The heat of her greenhouse made the glass fog up, but she could still see them. Even if she couldn't, it wasn't as if she'd forget the view. She allowed her eyes to glaze over as she savored the peaceful, all-encompassing vastness. It's effect on her had never dulled, not since she was little. 

Salome had always been fascinated by outer space, though she deemed the word "fascinated" too mild for what she felt when she looked up at a darkened sky. She couldn't properly put it into words, not succinctly anyway. Whenever she tried to explain her outlook to another person they would either interrupt her halfway through because she had taken up too much of their time, or smile weakly and nod until she trailed off, unfinished.

_"Can you imagine what it'd be like up there?" Salome asked her dorm mate, Nina."It'd be like...being everywhere, but nowhere, at the same time."_

That was the closest she could get to describing it. It was only thanks to Nina's endless patience that she'd come as close as she had. She closed her as a faint smile graced her lips as she gripped the small hedge trimmer in her hand. She did miss her.  The scent of roses drifted through the small space of her green house. She tilted her head down and lifted her finger to gently stroke a soon-to-be open bud. All her plants were coming along beautifully. Her report was filled to the brim with positive information to send back to Arcturus Station. She turned her head to a row of pots lining the wall of her garden. All were empty sans the un-germinated seed Salome knew were beneath the soil's surface. She frowned in the same way she would as a child when her test scores weren't what she wanted.

Salome stood up and set the hedge trimmers on her work stand. She checked a couple boxes off a list on her data pad and turned to leave. She turned the valve on the door and stepped into what functioned as a mini air lock, no bigger than a closet. Once she shut the door behind her, she pivoted to face the door on the opposite side of the minuscule room. She pressed a large red button at the door's center.  TILDA, the VI spoke in her computer generated English accent.

"Preparing to deactivate artificial gravity, please grab hold of the rails on either side of the cabin to avoid injury."

Salome was already holding on, and ground her teeth waiting for the VI to finish the same instructions she'd heard hundreds of times.

 "Deactivating gravity in 3,2,1."

 Salome's body gently floated upwards. _We are definitely not getting our money's worth out of that rail,_ she thought to herself.

The previously red button flickered to green, and Salome pressed it again. The door hissed as it  de-pressurized and opened. Salome grabbed at both sides of the opening and pushed. She flew lazily through her second garden, designed to test how well earthen plants grew in zero gravity. It was not the first garden of its kind, but Salome was currently experimenting with twenty-seven untested species of plants. The delicate orchid wasn't doing so well as of late but, regrettably, the kudzu was. Salome sighed as she collided softly with the vines that had overgrown their trellis. Despite her annoyance she gave each vine a gentle tug, careful not to damage them.

"TILDA, open zero gravity garden exit hatch," Salome ordered.

"Yes, Dr. Haw. Opening now," the VI replied.

Salome floated into a hatch like the first, and peevishly tossed her hair out of her eyes as TILDA went through the same procedure as before. She pulled herself to the floor with the guard rail just before the artificial gravity kicked in again. She shoved open the hatch and entered the large circular living space shared by the crew. The center of the room had a square shaped couch pit where the ship's signal officer was fussing with a piece of equipment on the coffee table.

"What innocent bit of technology has become your victim this afternoon, Marianne?" Salome called out as she headed to the kitchen on the left of the couch pit.

"Is it afternoon? I don't know how you tell without a clock," Marianne lifted her head from her work just long enough to flash sardonic smile.

"I dunno, it feels afternoon-ish," Salome ducked into the fridge to scrounge.

"Afternoon-ish? Is that the technical term?" Marianne let out a reserved chuckle.

"Sure it is," Salome replied as she tugged a cup of yogurt out from under a pile a half eaten sandwiches.

Marianne turned to her crew mate and lifted a brow

"You can trust me, I'm a doctor." Salome said, grabbing a spoon.

Salome walked down the short steps to the couch pit, and peeled the top off of her yogurt which was gratuitously labeled with prophesies of death if anyone other than her opened it. She cast a look at the goblin she had, poorly, drawn to the side of the container. Its speech bubble said, "Only Haw may gobble-lin this up." She snorted.

"Is that our Roomba?" Salome inelegantly asked with the spoon still in her mouth.

"It was," Marianne said grimly.

"What happened to it?" Salome leaned in and tilted her head.

"I did."

"Oh Lord, Marianne. You can't just dismantle things because you're bored. Whose gonna sweep up my potato chip dust now?"

"I can fix it. Probably," Marianne's eyes shifted to look away from Salome." It's not my fault I can't work right now."

"I know, I know. Elliot and Vendall are on it."

"It's still so baffling. All this technology," Marianne spread her arms to gesture at the walls surrounding her."And one day, boom, communications fizzle out with no explanation."

"We're on a gas giant's moon three galaxies away from Earth. Shit's bound to happen."

"Doesn't it bother you _why_?"

"Elliot and Vendall will figure it out. They are rather brilliant, just like a certain comm officer I know."

Salome gave a blinding smile as Marianne rolled her eyes. In truth, she was worried. She hadn't been at first, but after ten days of static with countless diagnostic tests and no discernible cause of malfunction, Salome was feeling uneasy. But, she reminded herself, everyone was. Adding her nervous energy to the mix was less than helpful. What the rest of the crew needed was for someone to remain patient and level headed, and since the captain was more on edge than anybody, Salome took on the responsibility.

Salome looked up at Marianne. She was an older woman with dark hair pulled into a bun, stringy wisps falling over her forehead as she pointed her gaze down at the robot's desecrated remains. Salome felt a regretful smile form on her face while she watched Marianee's knee bob up and down in agitation. Marianne had always been stoic, ever since Salome met her eight months ago, just a week before the Alliance sent them into space. She always worked though her emotions inwardly before expressing them to others, as if deciding whether or not they were worth getting into a conversation about. For her to be visibly upset conflicted with her very nature, and Salome felt feeble whenever she attempted to calm Marianne's nerves.

 Marianne had only just taken today off after eleven days of pulling out her hair trying to find a problem. Dr. Vendall, the astrophysicist and robotics expert, and Elliot, the ships pilot and mechanic, had taken over for the day. They had been helping all the while, but it was Marianne who lost sleep over it. Salome, Elliot, and Dr. Vendall had to practically pry the woman out of her station. It took more than a little convincing to make the workaholic leave, Salome recalled.

" _If the problem isn't with the communication equipment then it has to be some contrived electrical issue," Elliot suggested._

_"I went to school for this," Marianne voice wavered." How can I not fix it?"_

_"The problem isn't something you went to school_ for, _Marianne," Salome offered._

_"I've looked everywhere I can think of-"_

_"Dr. Haw is right, Officer Downey," Dr Vendall interjected."This is something so unforeseen we didn't even think to test for it during the ship's trail runs. It's not your fault and no one is doubting you."_

Salome smiled. She wasn't the only one staying level headed, she reminded herself. Dr. Vendall barely showed any emotions, for better or worse. But he was nice, if not a little too blunt at times.

As if on cue, Elliot and Dr. Vendall entered the room. Elliot had obviously been somewhere inside the machinery, as her white t-shirt was smudged beyond salvation with grease. Dr. Vendall was wiping his similarly stained hands on a cloth. Marianne jumped from her seat when she heard the door slide open.

"Anything?" She shouted as she scrambled over the couch and onto the floor above the pit.

Elliot turned to look at Dr. Vendall with and unsure expression.

"We didn't find anything," Dr. Vendall said anticlimactically.

 Elliot glanced back at Marianne and nodded. She obviously hadn't wanted to be the one to break the news. Marianne's face fell. _Who would,_ Salome thought.  

The door to the cockpit whooshed open. Salome frowned before she even saw him.

"Did you fix it yet?" Captain Alexander asked.

"We couldn't pin point the problem," Dr. Vendall said flatly.

Elliot had moved to stand flush with the doctor's side,  slightly out of the captains line of sight. Still, as if she would supply a different answer, Alexander leaned to look at the pilot.

"Riker?"

"Couldn't find the problem," Elliot mimed.

Alexander let the irritation show on his face. His brow quirked and his eyes narrowed. Arms crossed with his fingers drumming on his bicep, he turned his head to Salome.

"Maybe you'd like to try next? Couldn't hurt at this point." Alexander invited.

"After you," Salome bent her torso into a gentlemanly bow, still seated.

Alexander shifted his whole body to align with hers, and took a step forward, mouth open to speak.

"We ran diagnostics on our probes roaming the moon's surface," Vendall said suddenly." They still give off a signal and we can still receive it. We had a flyer probe discharged outside the moon's gravitational pull. At about 480 kilometers we stopped getting data from that probe. The problem appears to be distance, given that this moon is only 10 miles in circumference, it would make sense that we can still communicate with the land probes. At this point, we'll rest and check the carburetor in the morning." 

Dr. Vendall ended his monologue with an affirmative nod and went to the sink to wash his hands.

"Very well," Alexander nodded to the doctor as they crossed paths."You let me know the minute get everything back online. Get it done"

He turned for the exit.

"Do you _know_ how much data has piled up?" The captain added just before he passed the threshold.

The door slid shut.

"More than you do," Elliot mumbled.

Salome picked up her finished yogurt cup and walk up the steps over to the kitchen.

"We'll check the _carburetor_?" Salome said, tossing her trash in the disposal.

"He doesn't care what you say as long as it sounds like your working," Dr. Vendall said.

"Does this ship even have a carburetor?" Marianne joined them, leaning against the counter.

"Yes," Elliot said."It's got nothing to do with comm though."

"You'd have to be pretty clueless to think it would," Salome said."Did you make up all that probe stuff to fill the air, or...?"

"All of that is true," Dr. Vendall replied while wiping his hands dry.

Elliot took his place in front of the sink and pumped out a generous amount of soap as she washed off the oil.

"Any signal that originates from beyond 480 kilometers is undetectable to us," Elliot said." Our own transmission probably aren't getting back home, either."

Elliot's voice had raised since Alexander's departure. Salome knew she tried to keep a low profile around the disagreeable captain, but unfortunately, she also knew that he had a certain keenness for the meek pilot. Watching them interact one-on-one always left a bad taste in Salome's mouth, and she was grateful Marianne was also stationed in the cockpit.

When she was apart from him, Elliot's actual personality shone through. She loved her job, and could talk about it endlessly. Salome could listen to her ramble one for hours, since she had a tendency to do the same. Elliot also had a borderline filthy sense of humor, but only let that show when both men were absent.

Marianne's nose wrinkled at Elliot's statement. Her back straightened and she left the counter to come closer to the other three crew members.

"That doesn't bode well," She said

"Why not?" Salome asked.

Salome was the only one, besides the war hero Alexander, that didn't know jack about machines.

"If we still have the capacity to receive transmissions, but not from long distance, that would suggest that..." Marianne paused and drummed her finger nails on the counter.

"Don't leave me in suspense," Salome chuckled. "I'm ignorant over here."

"It would suggest we're being jammed," Elliot finished.

Salome felt an icy stab prickle her spine.

"Out here?" She whispered.

"If it's true, then here on Luna 14 we're just outside the jammer's radius. Anything we send out will be blocked when the signal hits that radius at approximately 480 kilometers. Earthen transmission probably haven't even gotten close to us." Dr. Vendall said.

"It makes sense. Well, makes the most sense," Elliot said.

"Makes more sense than the carburetor acting up," Marianne snickered.

Dr. Vendall let out an uncharacteristic snort.

" Land Probe One is due back in ten, I'll be in my lab," the doctor said.

Dr. Vendall turned and left the living space. Elliot took out the sink's hose to try and force the left over oil down the drain.

"Can I help you with, uh, that?" Elliot pointed at the deceased Roomba scattered on the coffee table.

"Sure," said Marianne." It'll go faster with two of us. No telling how long it will be before Sal ravages another bag of chips."

"Is that our Roomba?" Elliot asked with horror.

"It was," Salome and Marianne said in unison.

All three women stood in front of the coffee table at the tiny robot's remains.

"She'll never be the same," Elliot shook her head.

"I always thought it was a 'he'," added Marianne.

"I wonder if he had a family," Salome said.

"If he did, his wife definitely misses him," Elliot stooped to pick up a cylindrical, vaguely phallic piece of machinery. 

Marianne swatted her hand, and Elliot laughed playfully.

"How do you know he had a wife and not a husband?" Salome tilted her head.

"Are you telling me we have a gay Roomba?" Marianne questioned dryly.

"We used to," Salome said solemnly.

Elliot jabbed Salome with the piece of metal.

"I'll leave you to it," Salome backed out of the couch pit with a giggle.

Salome walked in the direction of Doctor Vendall's lab hoping the probe had procured some bio samples for her to inspect. She stood in front of the lab's door staring at her reflection in the glass for moment. She combed her hair quickly with her fingers before pressing to button to open the door.

"Did you get anything?" She asked.

"Dirt, and..rocks."

Vendall was at his work bench. The deactivated probe was opened up and set aside. He was combing through the machine's collection box with some forceps, separating the minuscule rocks from the dirt.

"Oh, joy," Salome said flatly. "May I?"

Vendall made a grunting noise in his throat and Salome sat down. Without looking up, he pushed the box in between them. Salome grabbed some forceps and started to search.

"You need to be more careful with Alexander," Vendall said.

"I know I shouldn't provoke him, I just..." Salome trailed off.

_"It's not your fault and no one is doubting you."_

_Vendall put a assuring hand on Marianne's shoulder._

_Salome saw Alexander scoff, and turn away._

Her eyes narrowed at the memory.

"I know," Vendall said.

Salome sighed.

"Thanks for distracting him with all your probe talk. I thought he was going to chew me out big time back there."

Salome picked out a rock shaped like a lima bean.

 "He would have, nothing to do for days now."

Everyone had a low opinion of the captain. He had been chosen for his military service, not his personal skills. Why they needed a soldier on a research vessel was beyond Salome's comprehension. Alexander hadn't wanted to stay on Luna 14 after communications went down, but Salome was able to convince him it was best to stay where HQ knew they were. If they went silent for too long, the Alliance might send a rescue ship. It was the logical conclusion, everyone agreed, but Alexander only conceded after Salome gave him a friendly squeeze on the arm, and explained the conclusion again with a smile. The way he looked at her when she touched him made her feel like garbage, like they were in on some little secret together. But at least they had hope of rescue.

"How are your plants coming along?" Vendall asked.

"Everything in earthen soil is still living, for the most part. None of the moon or asteroid soil samples have sprouted, so that's disappointing."

"We still have six months to find something,"

"I guess so," Salome shrugged.

Humanity had so far made one extraterrestrial colony, Shanxi, and was ever searching for more. Shanxi was far from perfect, and required more than a bit of technology to be made livable, but it was a start. Resources from governments and  the wealthy were pouring into the program to find a second earth. Salome knew it had to be out there, she just doubted it was anywhere near Luna 14.

"What if Earth 2 is already inhabited? What do you think the Alliance would do? "

"Hell if I know. I'd like to think we wouldn't force a native species out just for our benefit, but-"

"We are American," Salome laughed bitterly.

They carried on silently for a while. Salome started to build a miniature pyramid with her pebbles. She really didn't have Vendall's natural patience, hers was entirely manufactured and disposable when sufficiently angered.  

"Once we're done, I'll tell Alexander about the jamming theory," said Vendall.

"You really think that's what's happening?"

"I don't know, but if there's a possibility, the captain needs to know about it."

"You're right, I just-"

"Doctor  Haw, Doctor Vendall, please report to the cock pit immediately," TILDA chimed.

"What's the matter?" Salome questioned.

"Captain Alexander requests your presence," the VI replied.

"I gathered that," Salome muttered.

They shoved off of the work bench and headed to the cockpit. The automated door slid open to reveal the rest of the crew. Marianne had lodged herself between Alexander and Elliot, Salome noted happily. However, something in the woman's demeanor set Salome's nerves on edge. She was leaned over her console, the glow of which made her cheek bones look sunken. The captain glowered impatiently at them.

"They're here, now tell me what you found," he rumbled.

"What's wrong, Marianne?" Salome asked.

"I double checked that probe you sent out, Doctor Vendall," Marianne began. "It was returning to us and at about 340 kilometer it picked up a signal. You all need to hear this."

Marianne inhaled deeply and pressed a few buttons on her screen. The speakers gave out a shrill hissing sound that made Salome's teeth vibrate. Then, a voice spoke through the static.

" Alliance vessel, return to Earth. I repeat, Alliance vessel return to Earth. You are currently in a hostile section of space. Remain to the western side of the planet to avoid detection."

Marianne allowed the recording to loop once more.  No one said a word.

"There was a blip on the probes radar, I think it was one of our ships." Marianne said.

"Is it still there?" asked Alexander.

"I think it flew back into the jammer's radius."

"The jammer?!" Alexander interrogated.

Marianne winced at her carelessness. Salome stepped forward.

"Marianne told me just an hour ago told me if we couldn't find the problem in our equipment, we might be getting jammed. I kind of laughed it off, because why would that happen out here? She said she was going to make sure before she brought it to you because she didn't want to waste your time."

The statement has riddled with half truths and lies, but it was easier to swallow than the what had really happened. Besides, Vendall was going to tell Alexander. Salome didn't feel too uncomfortable spewing out the lies if it meant everything went smoothly.

"I see," Alexander clipped." Still, as captain you should have told me of any and all suspicions."

"I'm sorry," Marianne said without a change in expression.

"I'm sorry too, sir," Salome said ever so sincerely.

 Alexander seemed to eat it up. Salome frowned inwardly.

Suddenly, Marianne's consol pinged. She turned to examine the screen, eyes darting back and forth. She gasped loudly and began to press buttons and turn dials.

"Alliance vessel, this is the RSV Mendel, please copy," Marianne said sternly.

"Copy, RSV Mendel, this is USS Ulysses."

Everyone let out a collective breath. Alexander stepped beside Marianne.

"USS Ulysses, this is the captain speaking. We received an order to leave Luna 14, please confirm."

"Affirmative, captain. Evacuate immediately."

"My comm has been down for nearly two weeks, could you explain the situation?"

"That's quite the unfortunate coincidence, captain. Eleven days ago, USS Hamilton and USS Eleanor found another mass relay, cataloged as Relay 314, and attempted to activate it. They were fired upon by starship of unknown origin and the Hamilton was destroyed. USS Eleanor escaped to inform Alliance head quarters. They sent out a fleet to destroy the unknown vessel. We've been scrimmaging with more of the vessels all over our charted systems. As of four days ago, we are currently at war with an unknown sentient species."


	2. Inarguable Insubordination

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Salome processes the revelations before she is thrown deeper into the mess.

Chapter 2- Inarguable Insubordination

Salome burst out of the cockpit, the steel plated door slamming against the wall with zero delicacy. 

"Oh my God, oh my God."

She could hear Elliot gasping out the only words that she could think of to express the sheer enormity of the situation. Salome didn't comprehend anything around her. The memories of her own movements were like photographs taken at random points in time. A flash of the cockpit's door way, squeezing past Vendall as he tried to get a hold on her, the steps down the couch pit, and finally the zero-gravity garden's vault-like door.

"TILDA, open."

"Yes, Doctor Haw," the VI said ever so helpfully.

Salome entered the opened hatch. TILDA moved though her instructions at a snail's pace. Salome had her arms crossed, nails digging into her skin through her jumpsuit. Her foot tapped rapidly on the floor. Finally, the other door opened and Salome wasted no time in grabbing its frame to pull herself into the room. Her room. She floated on her back, slowly and steadily. The sky light was closed and the grow lights were off to simulate the night cycle. It was pitch black. She could herself breathing underneath the whir of the fans, but she felt as though she were drowning. Salome sucked in a big gulp of air and dug the heels of her hands into her eye sockets. She could still hear it.  

_"Could you repeat that?" Marianne's voice was hoarse._

_"Yes, ma'am. We are at war," the Ulysses' officer obliged._

_There was a heavy silence. No one spoke, but they're minds where whirling, attempting to comprehend how truly astounding that statement was. Salome thought it might just be the most incredible thing she'd ever heard. She wanted to puke._

"TILDA, open sky light in zero gravity garden."

The VI cooed her reply and did as told.

The hum of metal sliding back filled the air, and there it was. Like it always was. Always changing, but constant to her eyes, that would never be able to grasp the sheer vastness of it all.

Salome let out a drained sigh. Of course aliens were real. Anything could be out there, you just have to look up to see the possibilities.

"But why do we have to kill each other?"

Salome's voice spoke to no one, and no one answered.

 

 

By the time Salome composed herself, Captain Alexander was mid psychotic breakdown. Well, that was harsh given the situation, but Salome never apologized for her private thoughts.

"Those fuckers are going to die for this, all of them!" Alexander had kicked the trash can across the room and was pinning it against the wall his violent kicks.

"Alexander, I know this is nerve-racking, but we've got to leave now _._ " Marianne stressed.

"Leave _now_? I wanted to leave eleven days ago!"

"And if we had, we'd have flown into enemy territory getting to Luna 15," Vendall supplied.

"Shut up, Tatum," Alexander spat." They've killed one hundred and fifty-two of us already. It's been eleven days, and we're past double digits in the death toll. They are going to burn."

"And you're going to do that?" Salome interjected."You? In this research vessel twenty times smaller than a standard war ship?"

"Don't you underestimate me, Haw. I've been to hell for my country, I've seen men better than me get mowed down, but let me ask you this, do I look dead to you? No? Well, there's a good damn reason for that. Stop acting like _you're_ this ship's captain, and fall in line."

Salome crossed the room in slow, punctuated steps. She stopped only inches from the captain, twice her size, twice as angry. She held his gaze, unflinching. No one could say in that moment that she looked afraid. She was steel.

"If you don't do your duty to us, we join the toll. This is your responsibility, and we are your goal. Do your job, captain, or we'll all look like dead men soon enough."

Alexander's fingers curled into fist just before he was thrown into Salome by the force of an unexpected take off.

"Elliot!" Screamed Marianne

"Sorry, Mari. I promise the landing will be smoother," Elliot chirped over the speaker.

Salome had avoided being crushed by the marine only by the reflexes of the man himself. Alexander caught himself and Salome mid lurch, smothering her into his chest. All Salome could do was wiggle until the captain decided to release her, ungracefully, with a humph of disgust.

Salome broke away from his occupied space, rubbing the arm where his vice-like hand had been. Alexander got one last glower in before he headed to the cockpit. Luckily, Vendall followed him in to make sure Elliot would be okay despite her inarguable insubordination. Salome was grateful. Her days of sweet talking the captain into listening to the crew were over, now. She figured there wasn't any doubt in the captain's mind that she didn't respect him.

She heard muffled voices shouting, and winced. She knew she wasn't any help at this point, but she still entertained ideas on how to disarm the situation. The sprinklers might work, or she could release the kudzu...

Suddenly, a voice raised above the others.

"Well, we had to leave sometime, didn't we?"

It was definitely more of a statement than question, and it was made even better by the fact that it was Elliot who spoke.

Salome and Marianne met each other's gaze, and watched as the other person suppressed their laughter.

"Well, this has been an eventful afternoon-ish," Marianne laughed.

"Understatement of the century, Mari," said Salome.

They both laughed, out of amusement and to ease the pressure, but Salome still felt uneasiness sitting at the bottom of her stomach. It made her feel heavy.

 

The ship couldn't get to Earth by relay from their current system. They would have to leave the Horse Head Nebula by one relay to get to the Exodus Cluster, from which they could jump to Earth. It was, in lacking terms, unfortunate that they couldn't immediately head to safe space, but comm was up again, at least for now. That would help them avoid danger and keep Marianne busy, and by consequence, happy. 

Salome's research was halted completely. Everything she could do had been done on Luna 14. She was essentially useless, and tried to keep up on menial tasks to both stay sane and to dodge a sermon from captain Alexander.

The toilets sparkled, reports were filed, and food was always ready without the standard argument over who should be responsible for it.

Currently, she was on her hands and knees cleaning the floors. She scrubbed the tile so well she could see her reflection, and promptly asked it how a PhD in biology led her here. She felt something gently plop against her foot.  It was the Roomba, which used to be able to avoid large objects such as herself, but no more. She felt a tug at her heart strings at what she perceived to be earnestness in the little robot ramming itself into her foot.  She spun herself on her knees to pick it up and turn it in another direction. She felt the need to apologize to it when she saw the extent to which duct tape was applied to its outer surface. The robot scooted away, and Salome decided she was done.

Salome stood, rubbing the sore spots on her knees and admiring her handiwork. She picked up her sponge and bucket to put away, whistling to herself.

"Should we start calling you Cinderella?" Marianne called out to her.

"Not if you want to live," Salome retorted.

Marianne let out a short huff of laughter and walked over to Salome. She took the bucket from her hands and sought to empty it in the sink.

"I didn't come to harass you," Marianne said.

"Your initial goal seems to have passed you by," Salome replied.

"Ha-ha. There's been a change in plans. We're not headed straight back to Earth anymore."

"What?"

"Yeah, we're going to dock on the MacArthur and head back to Arcturus Station that way. Apparently, Admiral Drescher wants Alexander to command one of the Second fleet's ships."

Salome groaned.

"So his ego isn't completely rooted in delusion?"       

" I guess not. I mean, Drescher is kind of a big deal. If she asked for him, well, that's worth something."

"I don't even want to know what his smug face looks like right now."

"It's pretty smug. Better start sweeping the chimney if you want to avoid him."

"Maybe I'll just hide in the chimney."

"You've got about an hour of smug-free solitude before we dock. Don't get any ashes on your clothes, we've got to make a good impression on the respectable folks."

"I'll wear  my most respectable jumpsuit. You know, the one you're wearing?"

"You're a riot, Haw," Marianne said flatly, but not devoid of sentiment.

 

An hour later, the whole crew was squished in the cockpit as Elliot piloted toward the USS MacArthur. The MacArthur was a sizable vessel. It was an older model, and used to be one of the biggest starships in human history, but that time had passed.

"That has got to be a hundred times bigger than us," Salome said.

"And it's still about a half the size of the Howard, slower too," Elliot said.

"Lots of history in those walls. Everyone better show the ship and its crew the respect they deserve," Alexander orated.

Respecting their fellow officers was a given, but no one pointed that out. Alexander had more of his neck on the chopping block than they did, and while no one particularly liked the man, they understood his anxiety.

The RSV Mindel landed almost indiscernibly on the MacArthur's docking bay. The crew departed the ship and were met by the salute of an officer.

"I'm First Lieutenant Chang. Good to meet you, Captain Alexander," the officer said.

Alexander saluted back and returned the pleasantries.

"I understand that this is your crew," Chang said.

"Yes," Alexander said. "One pilot, one signal officer, and two researchers."

"Who's the pilot?"

Salome found it curious he referred to their specialties rather than their names. In fact, she found it strange he mentioned them at all. She figured they would just be extra bodies in the way until they were sent to Arcturus.

"That would be me, ma'am," Elliot stepped forward.

"Experience?" Chang asked.

"Not military," Elliot replied.

"Not officially military, but you trained the same as most of our pilots, yes?"

"Yes."

"I see..." Chang's eyes glazed over in what Salome supposed was introspection." Everyone follow me, if you would."

Marianne and Salome exchanged looks and filed in line with the rest of the crew behind Chang.

"Who's the signal officer?" Chang asked without looking back.

"I am, First Lieutenant," Marianne said.

"Recommendations, Alexander?" Chang said.

"Officer Downey is very capable, she hypothesized we were being jammed before she even knew we were at war," Alexander said.

"Very good, Officer Downey," Chang praised.

"It was a group effort, ma'am," Marianne said.

"Of course," Chang turned and smiled as she the pressed the up button on an elevator.

The group shuffled in the elevator, Chang entered last. She stood in front of the doors  with her arms behind her back. She spoke to the habitants of the elevator the way someone on a stage would orate to a large crowd.

"I'm sure you all can guess the stress we are under. We are stretched thin out here in the Exodus Cluster, and our enemy was made it abundantly clear they are capable of striking any system near our Local Cluster. We need more bodies, capable bodies. I know this is short noticed, and I understand if you resent the Admiral and I, but as of this moment everyone in this elevator will serve the Alliance until further notice," Chang gave a nod and turned her back to them.

Salome felt her head throb. _So much for going back home,_ she thought.

"Did we just get drafted?" She heard Elliot whisper to no one in particular.

"Yes, we fucking did," Said Vendall.

Salome flinched at the sound of Tatum Vendall swearing. He was never inflammatory in any way. It spoke volumes of how unprepared, how blind-sided he must have felt. Salome let out a chuckle and elbowed him.

"You can put a machine gun on land probe one, right?"

Vendall smiled softly at her and elbowed her back.

"He'll be the terror of the galaxy."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was the last set up chapter, thanks for reading through the boring stuff! Next up, there'll be action and a glimpse what of the turians look like. Comment your thoughts below, I'd literally send you the biggest cyber hug if you did.


	3. Hades

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Salome gets a look at a turian specimen, and the MacArthur engages the enemy fleet in battle in the Hades Gamma.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is where things take a darker turn. Salome is now fully within the conflict, so prepare for depictions of violence in this and the next few chapters.

Chapter 3- Hades

The crew did not get to meet the Admiral. Instead Chang led them to a briefing room and let them know the extent of the situation. The "hostiles" as they were referred to, were all over Alliance space. They had been hitting Shanxi hard after finding the colony almost immediately. Earth was okay, but the Alliance was itching to find a hostile colony to give them a taste of their own medicine.  The most interesting bit to Salome, is that they knew what the hostiles looked like.

"When the Alliance took back Relay 314, they salvaged a body from the wreckage of the enemy ship. It was pretty...well, you can look at the photos," Chang pulled the aforementioned photographs from a manila envelope.

Chang handed them to Marianne, who took one look before passing them to Elliot with a face of pure disgust.

"I don't need to know any more," Marianne said.

Elliot shuffled through all the pictures with her brow creased before giving them to Alexander. Alexander held the pictures to the side and down so that Salome could see along with him. Which was actually pretty nice of him, Salome conceded.

"Ugly sons of bitches," Alexander whispered.

"Anyone's ugly when they're missing half of their face," said Salome.

"You call that a face?"

The first photo revealed a creature that look at glance to be reptilian. It had stone-like armored plates the color of wet sand on its face, and what Salome would describe as mandibles. Well, one mandible. Its eye was missing, and the long crest on its head had been clipped savagely in half. Salome felt her jaw clench. If it'd been alive when that happened, it would have hurt.

The next photo was of the arm. The measurements on the side of the photo gave a rough estimate of the arm's length. Almost four feet.

"How big is this thing?" Alexander asked.

"All we have is half a head and an arm. But if human wingspan compared to height is anything to go by, our ship's doctor thinks this hostile was over seven feet tall."

Salome took a look at the three talons on the specimen's hand. They reminded her of an African eagle.

"Good thing we fight with giant ships and not our hands," she said.

"Agreed," said Chang."We've yet to face them in a ground skirmish, but I'm sure it's only a matter of time. Now, I'm going to assign you to your posts. Officer Downey will be sent to Arcturus Station,  and Officer Riker will serve with Captain Alexander aboard the USS Patel. Doctors Vendall and Haw will stay with the MacArthur until further notice. It's more likely for us to find you a job within your specialties on a larger ship, but I am sorry to split you up."

"They'll live, it's war," said Alexander.

Salome couldn't argue. They were right. And what was more, she had no _right_ to argue. This was not what she spent all her years in school for. She was in over her head, and she knew it. She didn't like Alexander, didn't even respect him as her captain. But as a marine and experienced soldier, she had no choice but to trust his judgment. They had switched places. Now she was the one submersed in an environment that was not familiar to her. But unlike Alexander, she would not make the mistake of thinking she could turn this ship into something it wasn't.

"Is this specimen still on the MacArthur?" Salome asked.

"Yes, in cryo. We were going to drop it off on Arcturus," Chang said.

"I'm a biologist, I would love to have a look," Salome said.

"I'll have to make a few calls," Chang said.

Salome nodded. If there was anything she could do for the Alliance, it was in that cryo-storage.

 

Admiral Drescher gave the okay for Salome to examine the alien specimen. She asked Vendall to help her with the autopsy, but he had already found work fixing combat drones. Instead, she had one of the nurses, Tiller, assist her. She also didn't have a morgue, so the resident doctor roped of an entire section of the med bay for her to work in.

On a table covered by plastic sat the remains of the alien, recently thawed from cryo. Salome took tissue samples and looked at the musculature and anatomy without ever cutting into it. She figured Arcturus station would want to perform their own "official" dissection of the specimen, and she didn't want to over step. She was grateful she got to see it at all, considering how underprepared the MacArthur was for this kind of work.

The first strange thing about the creature she noticed was that it appeared to have blue blood, much like the horse shoe crab back on Earth. It was armor plated like the horse shoe crab as well, but she would have described what she saw as more avian than arthropod. The next peculiarity was that there were markings on its face, like war paint. They were broad, white strokes that extended across its nasal ridge and dotted what was left of its chin. She wondered if they meant something, or if it was cosmetic choice. After all, it had no hair to dye.

The size of the arm still gave her chills. She couldn't imagine standing next to one. She laid her gloved hand next to the one on the table. There were so many difference. Her was small and five fingered,  the other large had only three digits that ended in knife-like claws. Salome looped one finger around a talon. It didn't cut her. She looked up into the empty sockets of the creatures head and was suddenly struck by a sense of pity for it. She didn't dare to hope that their two species would ever be peaceful, or that they had anything in common, but anyone could sympathize with pain.

Salome took her own pictures at every conceivable angle. She thought that this could be the last time she ever sees one up close, and she didn't want to miss a single detail. She had Tiller send the specimen back to cryo and began to run tests on the tissue samples.

Days later, she had concrete findings to report.

"It's got different amino acids?" Vendall sounded skeptical.

"Yup, its DNA is dextro-rotational. It winds right while ours winds left, to put it simply."

Vendall made a noise over his cup of coffee, and took another bite of his breakfast. Marianne was at Arcturus, and Elliot had been sent to the Patel days ago along with Alexander. Salome and Vendall met up for breakfast every morning, and that was the only remaining vestige of her old life on the Mindel. Even Admiral Drescher had left the MacArthur to board the larger and faster USS Howard.

"So what does that mean in the grand scheme of war?" Vendall asked.

"No clue. I guess they'd be easy to poison. Just throw some diet Coke in their water supply," Salome said.

"Creative. What does the brass think?"

" Admiral Drescher thanked me for my findings, but I don't think she sees significance in them. I gave Arcturus Station the full report. If I found anything helpful, they'll make use of it."

"You did really well for a scientist with no lab. Maybe they'll let you go to Arcturus."

"But then who would keep you company? There's no way they'll let you go now that they know what you can do."

Vendall smiled. He'd been doing that more as of late. Strange considering they were at war, and it was not the most joyous of times, Salome thought.

"It'll be safer for you, Sal," he said.

Salome offered her own reserved smile.

"No one is safe, Tatum."

 

Salome woke up to a hustle outside her cabin door. She rose from her bunk and noticed she was the only one still occupying the room. She peaked out of the door way. Personnel was moving quickly up and down the hall. Salome left her quarters without bothering to change out of her standard issue sweats. She joined the flow out to the crew deck. She spotted Tiller and shuffled over to him.

"Do you know what's happening?" Salome asked him.

"Yeah, did you sleep through the announcement?"

Salome nodded sheepishly.

"It's okay," he gave a friendly punch to the shoulder."Look, it's not good, so prepare yourself."

Salome unconsciously squared her shoulders.

"The hostiles took Shanxi."

Salome felt her jaw drop. _Shit._

"We can't even go help because there's a fire fight in the Hades Gamma. We're closer to there than we are to Shanxi, so that's where we're headed. Everyone's getting ready for a fight."

"How long?"

"One hour max. Good thing you got some extra sleep, I'm pretty sure the doc's going to want you in med bay."

"I'll be happy to help, of course. However I can."

 

One hour later, Salome was in the med bay in medical uniform. She didn't have any formal  medical experience, but as the doctor had told her, she at least knew where 'everything' was supposed to go.

She sat quietly, knee bobbing up and down in unwelcome anticipation. She had never been in a situation like this, and wasn't sure how to handle the knowledge that people were going to die today. She prayed to no one in particular that her friends would make it out. She didn't know what she was going to see, couldn't even begin to theorize.

"We've entered enemy space, prepare for conflict," a voice said over a loud speaker.

_Well, that's a mild way of putting it._

"Do you want to see?"

Salome looked up to Chang standing in the doorway.

"I was just passing through on my way to the command deck. I'll take you up there, only a few minutes though," Chang said.

Salome looked at the doctor who shrugged, and swiveled her chair back to her desk. Salome followed Chang into an elevator, again.

"Thanks for this," Salome said.

Chang turned her head to look at her.

"I read your report. I thought you might like to see more of what they can do," Chang said.

Salome wasn't sure what she meant by that. She supposed Chang was only trying indulge Salome's professional curiosity. As for what reason Chang had, Salome could only speculate.

The elevator opened up to the combat information center. Officers sat at their consuls lining the perimeter of the room. Chang walked through the room with a commanding grace she could only have been born with. Salome felt lucky to see her in the environment she was practically made for, and trailed behind her, fidgeting with the hems of her sleeves. Chang led her to the cockpit, and Salome looked out of the glass.

Salome felt her eyes prickle with tears. It had been a while since she'd last been able to look at the stars. The Hades Gamma was beautiful, and looming in the distance of its swirling reds and yellows was the wreckage of a multitude of vessels, human and alien alike. She never lacked in prose when it came to outer space, only in regards to the cosmos was she a poet. And even then, the only word that came to mind was 'death.'

 

An hour into the fight and the Second fleet had lost two ships. The MacArthur had sustained damage in one of its cannons. Three people were caught in that explosion, and were consequently in the med bay. Salome counted drops on the hanging IV, and uttered soothing words to a burned mechanic. He was the only one who couldn't walk away,  he had to be carried on account of his missing leg. War really was hell.

Salome heard word that they were pushing the aliens back. The Second fleet had caught them off guard, and they were severely out numbered. Salome was surprised the hostiles hadn't retreated upon the Second fleet's arrival. To even try to win with the odds as they were seemed completely stubborn. Salome wistfully thought that that was a rather human thing to do.

Suddenly, the loud speaker boomed.

"We've lost the USS Patel, prepare for incoming escape pods."

Salome instantly felt queasy, but didn't stop counting the drops. She couldn't forsake her duties, even if she was sick with worry for her friend. She kept working.

A few minutes later, the doors burst open with two figures on gurneys. One was a man she didn't recognize and the other was a woman whose face was covered by red tinged bandages and a manual resuscitator. A strand of short auburn hair peak through, and Salome knew.

She knew who it was even before Alexander tried to shove his way through two nurses to get into the med bay, who both held him back and pleaded with him to leave.

"Salome! Let me in here, it's Elliot. Let me see her!" Alexander shouted.

Salome was told to keep pressure on the newly admitted man's arm, and she did so. She looked at Elliot, but couldn't leave her spot.

"Alexander, let everyone do their job," Salome said evenly.

Alexander had been pushed to the entrance way, and was digging his finger tips into the wall in a last ditch effort not to be removed from the med bay.

"She got hit, it was bad. Her head was... she couldn't speak, couldn't move so I dragged her into the pod, and I tried to-I tried Salome but she didn't-"

"Alexander," Salome lifted her head to look at him for the first time."I know. I know that it must feel like you're abandoning her to leave while she's like this. But I promise you, you have done all that you can and you got her where she needs to be. You did your best, now the doctors have to do theirs. Please."

Salome could see the strength leave Alexander's arm. A nurse gave him an unnecessary shove out the door. Bloody finger prints painted the doorway where he had been locked in place. Salome tucked her head into her sleeve so that her tears wouldn't drip onto the man whose life she was saving. She wished very dearly that she had gotten to do the same for Elliot. Brave, intelligent, loyal Elliot. But war was hell, and Elliot was dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If your still reading this fic, thanks so much! I would love to know what you like, or don't like, in the comments. Much love! Next chapter will be up soon.


	4. Laid Bare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The emotional cost of war hits the MacArthur, and the worst case scenario becomes reality.

 

Chapter 4- Laid Bare

Elliot was wheeled to the back of the med bay and covered with a sheet. Salome asked to be the one who did it. The doctor was hesitant, and told her not to lift the bandages. Salome complied, but only needed to see the way the bandages dipped into empty space for her imagination to fill in the extent of the damage. Salome gave herself fifteen seconds to hold her friend's hand and compose herself. After that, she was all work.

The hostiles ended up retreating. Admiral Drescher ordered the MacArthur along with what was left of the fifth fleet to hold down the Hades Gamma while she took the Second fleet to Shanxi. The MacArthur was well suited to act as a command center for all of the smaller ships, and everyone was busy with getting the new rag-tag fleet into working order.

After she was let go from the med bay, Salome went to find Alexander. He was with the rest of his remaining Patel crew, huddled up in engineering until their temporary living quarters were sorted. They looked like they had escaped a house fire. Soot and smoke clung to their clothing.

"Captain," Salome addressed him respectfully.

"Doctor Haw, good to see you still standing," Alexander said with a smile that didn't reach his eyes.

He walked over to Salome. She spoke to him in a whisper, and had to stand closer to him than she previously would have been comfortable with, but she put it aside.

"The med bay is calm. If you want a minute to see Edgar and..." Salome trailed off.

Alexander gave a curt nod and turned to his crew.

"I'm going to med bay, I'll be back in fifteen." He said.

Salome couldn't help but think fifteen minutes was an awfully short time to visit the wounded and pay one's respects, but she didn't say as much.

Salome and Alexander walked in awkward silence. At least Salome thought it was awkward, she wasn't sure Alexander had the emotional intelligence to feel awkward.

"Hey, Ed," Alexander greeted as he walked into med bay.

Edgar couldn't turn his head on account of his neck brace, but he made up for a lack of eye contact with enthusiasm. 

"Captain Al! You came to see me? I'm not pretty like I used to be. I'm sorry to say you came for nothing."

Edgar's voice sounded hoarse, so Salome held up his drinking water and put the straw to his lips.

"Much appreciated," Edgar took a sip.

"I'm sorry to say you look the same," Alexander quipped

Edgar let out a bark of laughter.

"Are you sure you don't notice anything different about me?"

Edgar punctuated his sentence with a restrained chin tilt to his right arm. Salome had helped stop him from bleeding out, but they couldn't re-attach it. Alexander walked over to Edgar's bedside. He gave the man's stump an appraising look.

"A little daring for you, but , I think you can pull it off."

Edgar let out some more laughter. Whatever sense of humor Alexander had, Edgar shared it. Salome wondered if they were kindred spirits, or if Alexander made an effort to get to know his soldiers in a way he hadn't bothered with her.

Alexander gripped the part of the sheet that would have covered Edgar's hand.

"I'm so sorry, Ed," Alexander's voice was strained.

Edgar's smile was replaced with lines of worry.

"Drescher shouldn't have ordered that push. We all knew it was risky," Edgar said.

"I did know, I should have disobeyed." Alexander croaked.

"If we had pulled out, if it hadn't been us, it'd have been the someone else. We lost good people, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone else," Edgar whispered.

Alexander stood there for a while until Edgar urged him to go say goodbye to Elliot. Salome took him to the back. She could feel pulses of raw emotion coming off of him. She hadn't even thought he'd have felt guilty. She assumed if anyone understood and accepted the cost of war, the real cost, it would have been Alexander. His facade gained another crack with every inch Salome tugged the sheet down, until Elliot was uncovered to her waist and Alexander's expression was rendered to agony.

He ducked his chin and hid his face. If it was to avoid her own gaze or Elliot's, Salome could not say. Alexander sucked in a deep breath through his nose and jerked his head upward.

"I tried Salome, I tried to save her,"

"Why do you think you need to prove that to me?"

"Because I cost you a friend."

"I'll never believe it was you that did this to her. If you ever care to know anything about me, know that."

Alexander suddenly looked very tired and much older. Maybe fifteen minutes was all he could take. Salome waved him to come stand beside her, closer to Elliot. He did, and they stood in silence.

 

Vendall and Salome sat quietly at breakfast the following morning. They both stared off into nothing, eyes glazed over, tired to their very souls. Vendall took Elliot's death better than Alexander had, which didn't surprise Salome in retrospect. Vendall was wise and collected in a way Alexander was not.  When she took him to the med bay to see her, it was Salome who ended up crying. She hadn't gotten to, she realized. Her grief had to be delayed. Vendall let his shoulder touch hers. He wasn't a hugger, or maybe he thought he shouldn't smother her.

_"When we get to bury her, we'll play that awful 2010's dubstep she liked," Vendall said._

_Salome sobbed out a weak laugh._

The Patel crew was split among the other vessels to even out rations and labor. Alexander was still on the MacArthur as a temporary gunnery chief. She hadn't seen him since last night in the med bay. She didn't know how to reach Marianne. She didn't even know what she would tell her.

"Are you going back to med bay?" Vendall asked.

"Yeah, they can probably find use for me," Salome replied.

"Sal, I... I wish I could make it easier on you."

"I'm not the only one, Vendall," Salome chuckled darkly.

"Stop that," Vendall hissed.

"Stop what? It's the truth. I'm being realistic."

"You cannot invalidate your own feelings just because you're not the first and only person to ever lose someone you cared about. Do not, I mean it, do not look at me and tell me you don't matter."

Salome was at a loss for what to say. She knew Vendall cared about her, but she never expected him to actually say it. She figured he knew he didn't need to.

The room was abruptly bathed in red, flashing lights. Sirens wailed, and Chang spoke over the loud speaker.

"This is an emergency, all personnel to battle stations, we are under attack by ambush."

"Again? Fucking again?" Salome growled.

Vendall was right. She hurt, deeply. She wasn't sure she could do it all over again so soon. Salome sat up and walked over to him. They shared a tense look as crew members ran past them in all directions. Salome reached out to grip his sleeve before deciding it wasn't too over familiar to squeeze his hand.

"I feel like I can't breathe," she said with a trembling, quiet voice.

"But you are, Salome."

Vendall give her hand a tight squeeze in return before leaving to head where ever it was he needed to be. Salome forced herself to breathe deep and slow while heading down to med bay. The halls were vibrating with the nervous energy of the people coursing through them. The florescent lights over head felt too bright on her eyes. Everything was bleached white and plain. Nothing had color. Salome was overcome by a gnawing fear in her stomach that if she lived, her world would be this dull forever.

Salome was suddenly and violently slammed into the hallway wall. Her head met the steel with a vicious thud. The hall spun, screams seemed to echo from the ship itself. She slid down the wall as the MacArthur regained its equilibrium. She stood, legs unsteady and vision wheeling. Salome guessed she had sustained some degree of concussion, she hoped it wasn't the coma inducing kind. She braced herself on the wall and made herself hurry down to the crew deck.

Once she was there, she tried to get someone to tell her what had happened, but no one would give her their time. People were clearing out in droves, but Salome was hesitant to move. She felt dizzy in the worst sense of the word, and wasn't up to the task of forcing someone to talk to her. Salome groaned and massaged her temples. The loud speaker screamed.

"Hostiles aboard the MacArthur! I repeat, hostiles aboard the MacArthur! Non-combative personnel to the upper decks immediately."

If this wasn't the coma brand of concussion, Salome found herself begging the universe and the ghosts of her ancestors that it was the hallucination variety.

The lights went out.

Red once again bathed the room in the form of the backup lights. It was still dark, though, and the ship looked ominous in the unnatural glow. There were a few startled screams. Salome was suddenly very aware of how unprotected she was. She needed to get to the upper levels, and be quick about it.  Judging from the back up lights, power was probably being diverted from accessory functions to keep the main engines running. It was possible, Salome theorized, that the hostiles had damaged the generator in the ambush, or Chang had cut the lights to serve as a tactical advantage. Either way, the elevators were dead, which meant everyone needed to use the stairs to get to higher ground.

_Everyone, and not just us humans,_ Salome thought to herself.

Salome wondered if it was safer to stay put than risk confronting militant seven foot tall aliens with razors for hands in a dark stair well. If that were to happen, then she'd die for sure. She had no way to defend herself, to hand to hand or any combat training for that matter. If it came down to a fight, she'd just be an extra body in the way.  She'd have to try her best to avoid that situation, or there was no chance.

The crew deck had mostly cleared before the black out, the remaining personnel called out to each other.

"Let's get to the elevators," called one man.

"Elevators won't work, we're on backup energy," someone replied.

"More like backup-backup energy," a woman said."This ship should be able to switch between two main power generators, unless they're both busted, which would mean the MacArthur is basically a sitting duck."

"What?" the first man asked.

"We can't move and have limited ammo to fight with. Once the artillery guns are out of missiles, that's it. No plasma beams for us," The woman replied.

"We need to move now, our best chance is an escape pod at this point," another man stressed."Let's go to the stairs."

Foots steps clamored together to march down the short hallway to the stairway.

"We won't be the only ones using them," Salome called out."We need to approach this carefully."

The group stopped directly under a light and Salome could make out the heads of six men and women turning toward her.

"If we hurry there will be no need to worry," a man said.

"Yeah, we just gotta go now, while everyone is still moving. Safety in numbers," a woman said.

"I can't argue with that, but this ship only has one main stairwell with one exit at the top level. If there's too many people trying to get up there-" Salome reasoned, but was cut off.

"We're losing time!" Somebody shrieked, panicked.

"I get what you're saying, but we hardly have another option." The woman who spoke earlier said, calmly.

The group turned toward the door to the stairs. Salome stepped forward to follow them, but something instinctual in her gut roiled around. She wondered if she was over thinking, being too paranoid. The group opened the stairwell door and were greeted by a shout from someone above them.

"Rindy!"

"Callie! You're okay!"

One woman rushed up the steps to meet whomever was up there. The rest of the group shouted jovial greetings and moved out of view. Salome placed one foot in front of the other robotically, trying to push down a sinking feeling. She raised her hand to push the door open, but just as soon it fell limply at her sides.

If the enemy came along, everyone in line on the stairs would be as good as dead. That logic was sound, Salome reasoned, but that didn't mean the worst was going to happen. She had no other conceivable way of getting to the upper levels. This was her best bet. Still she hesitated a moment longer, standing still long enough to make out a soft rumbling noise.  The sound echoed off the walls and gradually grew louder and louder. Closer.

Salome turned on her heels, and looked around for somewhere to hide. As the noise drew nearer, she recognized it as heavy footsteps. Too heavy to be normal crew members. It sounded like armor clad steps, and lots of them. There was a chance it was from other humans, but that wasn't a chance she could afford to take. Salome dove into to the closest door, the men's restroom, and scanned the area. The stalls were too obvious, under the sink was just a bad. Salome felt a rise of panic when her eyes met with a vent positioned above the last stall. If she stood on the back of the toilet, she could climb up, but first she'd have to get the grate off.  Salome rushed to the stall and climbed up on the toilet to inspect the grate. Simple flat head screws held the grate in place. She tried turning them with her fingers, but they were too tightly fastened.

The sound of footsteps was now audible from the bathroom. Salome froze and listened. There was a familiar static buzzing sound that reminded her of radio signals. It sounded like the fuzzy audio Marianne would get when communicating with other ships. Salome contained a small gasp of optimism. She hoped that perhaps it was the headset built into  infantry armor, and that the crew deck was being secured by Chang's men.

Then, Salome heard a hiss. The hiss was followed by a dual toned, guttural growl that Salome knew she had never heard in her life. It wasn't Chang's men. Light danced through the crack at the bottom of the restroom's door. She could make out shadows of something stepping in front of the light, and then moving out of view. They were looking around, and it was only a matter of time before they checked  the restroom.

Salome felt a wave of nausea hit her. She prayed everyone was safely up the stairs. She entertained running out to warn them, but knew they'd kill her before she even got to the stairway door.  Why hadn't she tried to be more convincing? Why had she doubted her own intuition? 

Salome squared her shoulders and shook her head again, trying to dispel her own spiraling thoughts.

She couldn't save them now, there was no point fantasizing or tearing herself apart over it. All the emotion she felt needed to be tucked away, to be mulled over another time. If she was plausibly going to help the resistance effort, she would have to get to Chang.  And if that wasn't enough to get her moving, a simple look about her surroundings would suffice. Salome Haw resolved with an indignant huff that she was _not_ dying in a bathroom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ladies and gents, the turians have arrived! Thanks for sticking with this fic, it means the world, really. Oodles of love for those who left comments and kudos, you guys keep me going. New chapter up soon!


	5. Ascending

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Salome tries to evade the enemy and runs into someone else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Depictions and mentions of graphic violence up ahead, so if that's not your thing you should click off this fic.

Chapter 5-Ascending 

Salome found that she was very good at multitasking. She honestly surprised herself. Half of her conscious was currently devoted to lifting the metal lid off of the back of the toilet, while the other was screaming internally, cursing the universe up and down.

She placed the lid carefully on the ground, wincing at the minute ting it made when it met the floor. Salome looked into the toilet's inner-workings and thanked her lucky stars that the MacArthur was an old model with an old fashioned flushing system. She gripped the thin strip of metal that connected the flush handle to the flapper and pushed downward until it snapped. She yanked the dangling lift rods off, and replaced the lid on the back of the toilet. Standing on her tiptoes on the toilet, Salome used the metal to turn the screws as quickly as she could, willing her hands to stay steady. She undid all the of screws but the one at the top right corner, which was so tightly secured that the grate hadn't budged despite the other three screws being removed. Salome stepped down from the toilet and hid her make shift screw driver and the screws behind it. Then she climbed back up, and pushed the grate upward. The grate spun around on its single screw, opening enough for Salome to crawl inside.

It wasn't cramped, at least not at much as Salome would have expected, but she still couldn't turn around. Salome used the tip of her shoe to finagle the grate back into place, and hoped it looked convincing from the outside.  She started to crawl forward gently, to minimize the banging sounds her elbows and knees were making as she scuttled ahead.  Part of her wanted to rip through the duct work as fast as her body would let her, but she knew it might get her caught. Steadily, she trudged onward.

Over the sound of her gentle clanging, Salome heard something. She stopped in her tracks and craned her neck toward her shoulder, trying to hear better. Salome swallowed thickly. It was screaming. She couldn't make out any sounds of gunfire, but she could hear distinctly fear ridden shrieks leeching through the metal work. Salome didn't know if it was coming from the stairs or the level above her, but she knew she couldn't change course now.

It was becoming very hard to breathe. Salome choked down her own sobs, and gritted her teeth, forcing herself not to let her movements become sloppy. In the darkness, with nothing to focus on or to distract, Salome was overcome by how angry she was. Her life had been ripped apart, her friend was dead, her mentor might be as well, the sounds of people being slaughtered hung in the air while she crawled through a duct to save her own skin.

Just as much a Salome felt anger, she felt drained. The hostile's motives for attacking the Alliance were murky. It mostly likely had to do with the mass relays, but  they had no way of really knowing. No one side had even tried to establish communication with the other, which made the foreign invaders' intentions seem all the more ambiguously malicious. It was easy to perceive them to be harbingers of chaos, intent on only destruction, but Salome doubted that was the case. They had starships and advanced weaponry, they could feel pain and bleed. They were too human-like to not have a reason. As cruel as humans could be to each other, as cruel as they _had_ been in their long, bloody history, war always had an underlying motive, even if that motive's worth wasn't comparable to the consequential loss in hindsight.

Salome couldn't help but think about what their homes must look like, and wonder what sort of traditions they had, how their government was set up. Surely the answer would look something like one of the varying cultures Earth was home to, and surely they couldn't, in the end, be so different that there was no common ground. No hope for understanding or resolution, even if that resolution was to simply leave each other be. It all felt like squander, pointless waste. It felt so worthless to Salome, like war always did, that she was drained by the thought of it all.

Time was hard to measure when proceeding in a single, seemly endless straight line. Salome didn't know how long it took her to reach the ascending duct work, but she was passed the point of caring. She stood up in the vertical duct and looked upward. She could see light shining though a vent above her, but could tell it was quite a bit of distance away. Salome placed one foot on the side of the duct and braced her back against the other side. She lifted off the floor for a brief moment before noticing that her shoes were too slippery to keep a grip on the metal. Kicking off the cheap, rubber soled nursing shoes, she tried again. This time, she stayed up.  One foot above the next, she shimmied her shoulders to move her body up the vent. She could already tell this was going to take a lot of strength she wasn't sure she had.

Breathing heavily and sweating, Salome reached the top. There was a grate straight above her, and another horizontal trail of ductwork on the side of  the vent where her feet were planted. Salome knew she couldn't feasibly open the grate from her current position and used the last her vigor to push off of the vent and propel into the horizontal ductwork. It made a noise louder than she anticipated, and cringed at her own carelessness.

"Did you hear something?" a faint voice asked.

Salome gasped. That voice was definitely human. She reached over to the grate and gave it a swift strike.

"In here!" Salome shouted.

 Salome heard footfall coming toward her. Soon a face appeared behind the grate. It was a man she didn't know, but she was very glad to meet him.

"How on Earth did you get in there?" the man asked incredulously.

"I'll tell you all my secrets if you get me out of here," Salome replied.

The man shook his head, not quite laughing, but obviously amused to some degree. 

"Hey, Mike," he called out."You still got that knife you love so much?"

"What's it to you, Cyrus?" another voice responded.

"Well, I thought you might like to show it off to a young lady. Seeing as you're so proud of it."

"What are you-"

The second man, Mike, came into Salome's view. She offered him the best smile she could muster, and he seemed to freeze for a moment before asking her to get out of the way.

Soon the grate had been sliced open by a Bowie 2076 Plasma Blade, and Salome gave a short explanation of her situation as she was pulled out of the ventilation shaft as gently as was possible. From what Salome could tell, they appeared to be in a supply room full of computer consoles and lined with shelves.

"Congrats on making it all the way to the top floor in the most ill advised way I can think of," said Mike.

"This is the top floor? Where are the escape pods?" Salome asked.

"Gone," hissed a woman in the corner.

Salome turned her attention to the woman, who was wrapped up in a jacket too big to be her own, glowering at the floor.

"What?"

"The pods had a maximum capacity of twelve, but most didn't fill up all the way," Mike said, hanging his head.

"Those cowards, those _bastards_ , left us here to die because they were too scared to wait," the woman's eyes filled with tears.

The atmosphere in the room was tense. There were only the two men and the one woman, and it was obvious they were all devoid of hope.

"How many people are left?" Salome asked.

"Who knows?" said Cyrus." Let me fill you in on the whole situation, it's kind of complicated."

Cyrus sunk to the ground and patted the floor in front of him. Salome sat.

"When the alert went out for everyone head to the upper levels, the stairs became completely flooded with people," Cyrus began.

Salome swallowed, throat dry.

"The hostiles boarded on both the engineering deck, and the crew deck. They took out both the power generators. When they found the stairwell, it was a blood bath. Lisa was down there, she could tell you, but don't ask," Cyrus lowered his voice and tilted his head to the woman huddled in the corner.

Salome felt horror rise in her chest when she saw the blood that drenched the woman's uniform beneath the oversized jacket. She turned her attention back to Cyrus.

"People stampeded each other to get away from those monsters. The ones who made it through were too rattled to wait for the escape pods to fill up."

"I still remember, that bitch Rindy, she said she was my friend but she didn't wait for me. I made eye contact as she pushed the button to take off. I pounded on the glass, I said 'Wait for me, wait for me!'" Lisa slammed her fists on the ground repeatedly. "She had time, I could have made it! I have a daughter on Earth, I could have made it!"

Dejected, soul crushing sobs ripped their way out of Lisa's throat as she continued to slam her hands on the floor. Both of the men tensed up, and cast glance at each other, as if telling the other to go do something about the desolate woman. Salome crawled forward as composed  as she could manage. She gently place her hands under the woman's to stop them from colliding with the unflinching metal.

"That's just going to hurt you, Lisa," Salome said.

"What do you know? What do you know?" Lisa repeated, still crying.

Lisa pounded on Salome's chest in retaliation, but there was no force behind it. Salome braced her arms on Lisa's shoulders and squeezed them, attempting reassurance without presuming to be overly familiar. Lisa's hands fell limply in her lap, and her cries became low volume whines. Salome turned to sit beside her, and Lisa slumped to rest her head on Salome's shoulder.

"Bodies everywhere, piled up like sand bags, draped over the railing, falling down with a splat," Lisa wept.

Salome barely contained a shiver.

"How did Chang let this happen? Surely she would have insisted on some order," Salome asked.

Mike and Cyrus exchanged looks again.

"This one's yours, Mike," said Cyrus.

Mike heaved a sigh.

"She did. She ordered the stairwell door to be opened until we had visual on the enemy to get as many people through as possible. However, some of the people who got through were, well, shaken, and wanted the doors closed immediately. Chang ended getting a blow to the head when she refused and passed out cold. Hell, I don't even know if she's still breathing. After that it was every man for himself," Mike said.

Salome felt rage build up in her. How could a crew who swore to protect humanity lose themselves so easily?

"Did the enemies get through?" She asked.

"They're working on it," Cyrus sighed." The command center is on full lock down mode now, thanks to Officer Rand, may he rest in peace. All windows and doors are blocked by ten inches of blast resistant steel, but that's only slowing them down."

"Only a matter of time," Lisa said, hollow.

"We figured we'd barricade this room to give us some extra time to wait for reinforcements, if they ever come. " Mike said."We got weapons, not good ones, but we'll go out blazing if it comes to that."

Salome sat back to think. Mike and Cyrus seemed to think they were going to die, and they were taking it rather well. Or, perhaps, they were looking forward to the inevitable shoot out. Salome couldn't blame them if they held a grudge. Lisa was inconsolable, but could probably follow orders as well as the next person if it meant survival. They all seemed competent enough to make a plan and follow through with it, if only she could think of one. Surely the best option wasn't sitting around and waiting to die. There had to be another way.

"Is that a mechanic's uniform, Mike?" Salome asked.

"Yeah?" said Mike.

"You think you could make a grappling hook?"

 

 

As it turns out, Mike was exceptional at making grappling hooks from scratch.

"Grew up with a junkyard for a backyard," Mike laughed." Made myself a nice little house out of an old Cadillac when I was just thirteen. Working stove and everything!"

"Cadillac? That must've been one rusty fossil." Cyrus said, helping Mike fasten the hooks onto cable. 

"Looked just fine with new paint. Plus house are supposed to stay still."

The two men were much more jovial than they had any right to be, but Salome thought that was just fine.  She had taken off the T-shirt she had on under her jumpsuit and given it to Lisa, who used Cyrus' oversized jacket to cover the blood stains on her thighs. She looked much more presentable, and Salome hoped not being drenched in blood made her feel better.

"You ready to find some fellow escapees?" Salome asked.

Lisa offered what was probably a smile.

"Let's round 'em up," she said.

Salome picked up the pistol sitting on the counter, and Lisa picked up the shot gun. She said it was more her style. The two walked out of the newly un-barricaded door and proceeded slowly down the command deck.

_"So, right now we're in a supply room on the lower right hand corner of the command deck." Cyrus explained." The stairwell entrance is all the way on the other end of the deck. If other people are hiding like we are, I'd check the restroom and the war room. But quick warning about the war room-"_

_"It's right next to the stairwell," Mike interrupted._

_Cyrus shot a look at Mike, who made a show of not making eye contact._

_"We don't have time to look everywhere, we check these places and go forward with the plan, extra bodies or no extra bodies." Salome said._

_"Agreed," said Lisa._

_"I hope you find some people," said Cyrus._

_"I hope this plan works," said Mike._

_"Me too," Salome said_

Salome could see the stairwell door from across the room, blocked off by a metal slab. The windows that had allowed Salome to see the Hades gamma her first day aboard were also shuttered, obscuring the view of the firefight blaring in the space around them.

"Do you see how the metal looks weak at the center of the door?" said Lisa." I think they tried to use a bomb to get in, but it didn't quite work. I haven't heard anything else since, maybe they gave up?"

"Well, they've definitely taken down the MacArthur, anything else would be overkill at this point-"

There was a loud bang coming from the stairwell door. The metal glowed hot from being super heated, but rapidly cooled to its normal grey color. There was more banging, probably to test if the metal was weak enough to break yet. It wasn't

"If only we'd had the foresight to make that a two layered door," said Salome.

"Why stop there? Give it ten fucking layers, just keep those monsters away from me," Lisa said.

Salome and Lisa moved forward to get to the rest room on the command deck's west wall, keeping their footstep quiet but their pace quick. The metal floor was icy beneath Salome's bare feet. She could make out the shapes of two bodies slumped against a far wall, not moving. They were dead. She squinted her eyes to focus on their face. Neither were Vendall, but that didn't ease her mind much.

"Did you see them?" Salome asked.

"Couldn't miss them, not from where I was."

Salome resolved not to press Lisa any further considering what she'd been through, but Lisa went on anyway.

"They were huge, that's what you'll notice first if you ever see them. Enormous, twice my size and I'm no Barbie doll. They were in full armor, I couldn't see they're faces. It was so weird, the armor looked like something we'd make, you know?"

"Guess there's only so many ways to make good armor," Salome said idly.

"Yeah, guess so. They had two arms and two legs, too. Just like us."

"Guess there's only so many ways to evolve to be an apex predator."

"You're not as funny as you think you are," Lisa said in a way that reminded Salome of Marianne."Thanks for calming me down, by the way."

"Whatever you need. Do you feel better?"

"Yeah, it's good to be doing something instead of waiting for the reaper to pay a visit."

"Same here."

The rest room wasn't empty. There was one man in the first stall in a pool of blood missing a chunk of his side. Salome wondered how he made it as far as he did as her stomach churned.  She walked back over to Lisa who was waiting by the door, shaking her head. Once Lisa saw the blood, she asked not to see the rest. Salome was glad she was taking care of her mental status and not putting too much on herself. Salome gave her a pat on the back.

"War room?"

"War room."

The war room entrance was unfortunately adjacent to the stairwell entrance. The doors weren't even ten feet apart. As they grew closer, Salome could practically feel Lisa stiffen up.

"You don't have to do this," Salome offered.

"Who's gonna back you up if they get through? That baby gun of yours?" Lisa's voice shook just a little.

"It's how you use it that counts."

Lisa rolled her eyes.

They arrived right in front of the blocked off stairwell door and crept over to the war room.  Salome felt queasy when she saw up close how the metal had been warped by the hostiles' explosives. Salome was about to push open the  war room door, when she thought better of it. She pressed her face to the door and spoke softly.

"Hello?"

"What are you doing?" hissed Lisa."They're going to hear."

Lisa tilted her neck to indicate the hostiles on the other side of ten inches of blast proof steel.

"They need to know we're human," Salome murmured back.

"Salome?" A rough voice whispered through the door.

Salome knew that voice.

"Alexander?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is where things take a survival horror sort of turn, with the turians lurking about unseen, for now. This is sort of a set up for the second half of the story line. Comments and kudos are my fuel, please tell me your thoughts! Constructive criticism welcome.


	6. Descending

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The survivors of the MacArthur implement an escape plan.

Chapter 6- Descending 

About seven days ago, Salome Haw thought there was no way in heaven or hell she would ever be happy to see Ander Alexander. But there she was, ready to hug him with tears welled up in her eyes because for the first time in an uncertain amount of hours, she felt safe. For the moment anyway.

He looked worse  than she'd ever seen him. His hair and face had blood spatter on them, and his under eyes were dark from unrest. Salome guessed that he hadn't been sleeping well for days before the attack. She could hazard a guess why.  There were six other occupants in the room, all looked like they'd been through something that changed them from the inside out. Salome noticed Edgar, the man from the infirmary, laying down with eyes closed but still breathing. She let out a breath she hadn't known she was holding. She was glad to see him alive, she only wished Vendall had been with him.

"You're alive," Alexander said, urging them both inside.

"So are you."

"I have a good amount of experience not dying in firefights," he said.

"I know. I've actually only lived this long to try to one-up you," Salome said.

Alexander laughed softly.

"Of course you're still the same, even in all this mess," he said, gesturing around himself.

"I've got a plan to get out of this mess."

Alexander raised an eyebrow.

"That sounds too good to be true, no offence."

"None taken. I can't even be sure it'll work, but I can tell you we aren't going to wait around for the bad guys to breech the door."

"I'm in," a voice rose from the back.

A man stood up.

"I'm not sitting around anymore," he said.

"Let's at least hear the plan before we start splitting off," Alexander said evenly.

Everyone turned to Salome. She knew her plan was going to sound flimsy at best, but she also knew the chance of survival was better if these people got off the top floor. She was going to have to sell it.

"I got up here from the crew deck through the air ducts, if we proceed in small parties of four the vents should hold our weight. We'll exit out of the men's bathroom on the crew deck, and-"

"What if we those things are still down there?" someone interjected.

"In all likelihood, their numbers will be thin by now," Alexander said."Most of our crew is gone, or dead and they know it. They don't even need twenty men to take us down, and they know that too. These things have tactics, rationale. They won't have significant amount of their troops hunting down strays on a derelict spaceship. If they are on the crew deck, it'll be a number we can manage."

Alexander punctuated the end of his sentence by gesturing to the guns piled up in the corner. He looked at Salome and asked her to continue.

"Right, so once we exit the crew deck rest room, we'll head to the elevators. My friend Cyrus says the doors won't be difficult to open with the power out." she explained.

"But the elevators don't work with the power out," another person said.

"No," Salome said."But the cables will still be there, we'll use those to slide down to the docking bay. There, we'll board RSV Mendel and travel to the closest Alliance ship."

"But we might get shot down," a woman said.

"We might," Salome nodded.

"Let's do it," a raspy voice croaked.

Salome could hardly believe her eyes. It was Chang, slumped in the corner and draped by shadow.

"Lieutenant Chang, I thought you were dead," Salome said.

"Not for somebody's lack of trying. I don't know the man who pistol whipped me by name, but I know his face. I also hold one hell of a grudge," Chang said.

"Can I see?" Salome asked.

Chang nodded and Salome sat in front of her. The light was bad, but she could see the laceration extending from the corner of Chang's eye down to her cheek bone. Chang told Salome that she hit her head on a console's corner when she fell, and thought that she had a concussion.

"It's not bleeding, which is bad for head wounds, but at least there's no mess," Chang chuckled.

"This will leave a cool scar, at least," Salome joked, tracing her finger lightly over the laceration.

Chang chuckled again.

"I've always wanted a battle scar," she said.

"Can you stand?"

"Haven't tried, but when the time comes, you can rest assured that I'll manage. Edgar on the other hand..."

Salome whisked around to look at Edgar laying on the other side of the room.

"Cervical spine fracture, can't move my neck," he said, putting his hand on his neck brace." Plus with only the one arm, zipping down elevator cables just doesn't sound possible, frankly. I'll stay here. I'd only slow you down."

"I'll carry you," said Alexander.

"Down an elevator shaft?" Edgar said.

"Yes," Alexander ground out."I carried you this far, didn't I? Have a little faith."

"I've got faith, Ander. But I've also got common sense."

"Don't make me order you. Please just cooperate."

"I don't want to leave you, Ed," Salome said." It wouldn't sit well me at all. In fact, I might cry about it. You wouldn't want that, now would you?"

Salome gave a pout and Ed let out his signature bark of laughter.

"We'll make it work. It'll be the hardest thing we've ever done, but we'll do it nonetheless," said Salome.

"Don't go making promises now, Doctor Haw," Chang smiled.

"I promise, I'll do everything I can to get you guys out of here," Salome said."Let's get moving."

 

 

Sliding down the ventilation shaft was much more agreeable than climbing up it, Salome thought to herself. A breeze tickled the hairs around her face as she descended, this time with a flashlight to give her visual. She reached the bottom and quickly rolled out of Mike's way as he met the ground as well. Alexander and Lisa came down next. The next group of four were instructed to come down ten minutes after the first group left. Chang and Edgar would be the last two, which they had insisted on themselves. It took Edgar no small effort to convince Alexander he could crawl just fine unassisted. Alexander was visibly still cross about that decision.

Salome took the time to don the shoes she had left on her last trip through the vents before pressing on. She was the only one in the group with a flashlight, which she kept switched on as she lead them forward.

"This is much dustier than I remember," she said."Is that a spider web?"

"Please don't point out any spiders, I don't want to know," said Lisa.

"Spiders are an evolutionary miracle, their silk is stronger than a steel thread of the same width.  Some scientists theorize that a vest made of spider silk would be as strong as Kevlar. Pretty cool, right?"

"Why do you always bring up evolution?" Lisa asked.

"I'm kinda out of my element here, let me enjoy my spider facts," Salome said.

"I liked the spider fact, do you have more?" said Mike.

"They have eight legs," said Alexander.

"Did you just make a _joke_?" said Salome

"Are you trying to insult me?"

"Wouldn't dream of it."

"Don't lie, I know you don't like me."

"Are we really doing this now? Because I have imagined this conversation in my head an admittedly pathetic amount of times in the shower, and I am totally prepared. But you have to ask yourself if you're ready."

"As good a time as any!"

"It's really not," said Lisa.

"Did you guys know some spiders can be brown?" Mike said.

"Listen, Alexander. This is going to sound backwards, but I trust you with my life. I just don't want to ever work with you again," Salome said.

"No, that sounds about right," Alexander said.

"If you know that then why are you mad at me?"

"You know what, Lisa was right. This really isn't the time."

"Oh no, you don't. I gave you a chance to back out already. Now buckle up and tell me about your feelings!"

"How about you tell me about _your_ feelings."

"I asked you first."

"Spiders can be black or white, as well," Mike said.

"Everybody shut up, I can see the exit," said Lisa.

 Salome grumbled as she lifted the grate out of her way. There was really no graceful way to get out of the vent, so Salome dangled out of the opening until she found purchase on the back of the toilet and attempted a somersault. She didn't exactly fall, but she was glad Mike was the only one who could see her land. Mike was easy-going.

When everyone was down, Alexander armed himself with the assault rifle he carried on his back. He walked, almost gliding, over to the exit and cracked the door to peer through. Alexander bid the others forward with a wave of his hand. He stepped out of the doorway, looked up and down the room, and then turned to shrug at Salome. No one was there, for now.

They walked over to the elevators. Lisa kept her eye on the stairwell door as the others got to work. Mike slid a make-shift crow bar in-between the elevator doors and pulled, giving Alexander enough room to grip onto them. Mike and Alexander proceeded to muscle the doors open, during which Salome became very thankful that Alexander's biceps were practically the size of her head. Once the doors were open Salome shone her flashlight up and down the elevator shaft.

"Looks like the elevator is stuck above us on the command deck," she said.

"So that means it can fall on us while we're climbing down?" Mike said.

Salome nodded.

"Let's just be delicate as we can with the cables," she said.

Mike handed her what was supposed to function as a harness to attach to the cables. It wouldn't stop her from falling but it would slow the speed of her descent.  Mike helped her strap the crow bar onto her back with extra rope.

"Next group should be coming down now," said Alexander, glancing at his watch.

"Alright, no time like the present," said Salome.

And with that, she jump into the void.

Salome got a grip on the cable five feet down and hooked the harness to it.

"You okay?" called Alexander.

"Yup, I got it!"

"Okay, hang on tight."

Salome wrapped her legs around the cable and gripped it so hard her knuckle turned white. Alexander was strong enough not to need a harness. He jumped onto the cable and latched on, unmoving.

"You look like a bat," said Salome.

"Joke's on you, they're my favorite animal."

Salome shuffled down the cable slowly, trying to keep her speed under her total control. She already felt her muscles straining from the effort. The docking bay was the second to last floor. Beneath it was the engineering deck, which has probably on fire, given the distinct burning odor in the air. Salome stopped ten feet above the docking bay door. She was going to need gravity on her side, since she didn't have the strength to clear the eight foot gap on her own.

"Okay, so how do you want to do this? I've got the grappling hook, but it won't hold onto anything if the doors are closed," Alexander said.

"Mike and I talked about it, don't worry."

Salome started to unhook her harness. Above them, Mike was fashioning a plank out of a table for the wounded to walk out to the cable rather than jump. She could hear Lisa admonishing him for making too much noise.

"How are you going to get them open when there's nowhere to stand? The crow bar's not magic."

"I said don't worry, now let me concentrate."

Salome switched on Mike's Bowie 2076 Plasma Blade, unlatched her harness, and pushed off the cable. As she let gravity take her, something in her reptilian brain told her she was about to die. Her stomach sank, her breath stopped, but she keep her eyes on her goal. The knife cut through the metal almost instantly, and Salome felt the wind get knocked out of her on impact. She found herself dangling at in the very middle of the doors, about thirty feet from the bottom of the shaft. She could possibly die if she fell, and if she didn't die she would most definitely break something instead. The crow bar was tugged out of its binding and shoved unceremoniously into the crack between the doors. Adrenaline was pumping through her veins. She was afraid, but she suppressed it. Gripping the knife as hard as she could, Salome pulled herself up and used her feet to push the crowbar back. A gap formed and the crowbar, with nothing to keep it in place, fell out and down the shaft. Salome shoved her knee into the gap before it could close. She grunted in pain as the steel tried to shut itself on her, but forced her leg downward until it met the floor on the other side of the doors. Sucking in her breath, she let go of the knife with one hand to grab onto one of the doors, and managed to pull herself in half way.

Salome pulled the knife out of the elevator door and switched it off, tucking it into her pocket.  She pushed against the two doors with her back and legs until they gave with creak, and stayed open. Sliding down the metal against her back, Salome looked up to Alexander, exhausted, and gave him a thumbs up.

"What the fuck, Haw?" he screamed." You should have let me do that, what were you thinking?"

"Toss the grappling hook!" She shouted back.

"We are talking about this later!"

Salome waved dismissively at him. The grappling hook gripped on to the side of the elevator entrance as she took out the Bowie knife and carved a fissure into the wall next to it. She replaced the grappling hook into the fissure, and gave it a few solid whacks to make sure it was secure.

"We good?" she called out to Alexander.

"Rope is secure from here." he replied.

"I'm gonna test it then."

 Grabbing on to the rope pulled taut between the door and the cable, Salome once again let herself dangle freely over moderately certain death.

"It's good!" she exclaimed.

"Wonderful, now get back on solid ground before I have a heart attack."

"Go back up and help the others, I'll scout ahead."

Salome replaced herself on the docking bay and walked around, rubbing her now bruised leg. She was currently on a platform overlooking the docking bay, with stairs leading down on both her left and right. The hanger was absolutely gargantuan, it gave her the impression of a football stadium. Every step she took echoed off the its walls. She could see where the RSV Mendel parked where they had left it, and that felt something like hope surge inside her.

She heard someone coming down the improvised zip line and ran back over to help them land. It was Cyrus.

"Alexander asked me to ask you to kindly not kill yourself. Please," he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope the spider facts made this less of a trudge to read through. Not a lot of action in this chapter, but I'll make up for it in the next. Thanks for all the comments and encouragement, you guys are the best! New chapter up tomorrow!


	7. One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alexander and Salome finally talk, and the last push toward freedom begins.

Chapter 7- One

Salome punched the pass code into the Mendel's loading door. She cleared away to give the hatch enough space to open without crushing her, and proceeded up the ramp while Alexander hounded her.

"I still don't understand why you had to jump," he said."I could see your arms shaking, you could have died."

"I told you, Mike and I talked about it," Salome rolled her eyes."Between you and me, I weigh the least, so the knife could hold me. It was practical."

"You're insane."

"No, I'm practical."

Alexander walked over to the cockpit and turned on the lights. Everything looked the same, untouched. It was all standard furniture with standard paint and standard appliances. There were probably a hundred other vessels that looked exactly like it, but it felt like coming home. It felt like the stars.

Something gently tapped her foot. It was the roomba, still kicking, with its duct tape and its earnestness. Salome picked it up, feeling the wheels whirring against her palms. She could see where Elliot had applied the tape. It was more precise than Marianne. Elliot was always precise. It wasn't in her nature to be wasteful. This biggest waste Salome ever heard of was Elliot not living to see twenty-five. So much potential, so much goodness, wasted. Still holding the roomba, she walk over to the cockpit. Alexander was overlooking the hanger, hand resting on Elliot's chair.

"If she was still here, we wouldn't need to worry about getting shot down," he said."I knew she was good, but God, Salome, you should have seen her in a fight."

"She died in a fight."

Alexander gripped onto the chair, knuckles blanching.

"You know what's really messed up? We knew we were going down before the blast even hit. This enemy cruiser comes into view, and we just knew. Elliot, she... she looked at me and smiled. She wasn't crying, but she was sad.  I think she was sad, I don't know if I've ever seen that emotion before."

Salome couldn't imagine what Elliot must've felt, but going out with a smile was certainly her style.  Salome heard the sound of some others coming aboard, and closed the cockpit door. 

"It was like," Alexander continued." She accepted it before it even happened. Like she didn't want to go, but she wasn't mad.  I was mad, I was so angry. I dragged her through fire and rubble and all I felt the whole time was anger. She was worth so much more than what she got."

She could see it in her head. A gentle, soft smile with brown eyes crinkled at the corners where the fine lines were starting to appear, proof that smiles came easy to her.  Salome had seen it before, but never like this. Tears dripped down her face and dotted the floor.

"I'll see that face on my death bed, I just know it. It's gonna haunt me."

"Why did you care about her so much?" Salome asked.

Alexander swiveled the chair around to face Salome and sat down. His fingers idly stroked the hand rest.

"I looked up all of the crews' records, and saw her scores on the simulator. Top tier, too good for a languid tour around unnamed moons and asteroid belts collecting dirt. Oh, I didn't mean-"

"I get it."

"Sorry... I was just confused. I could understand if she was too afraid to go into the military, and I kind of figured that was the reason she declined their offer. But then I met her. She was shy, maybe not too fond of direct eye contact, but she wasn't a coward. And then I met you, and saw how Elliot lit up when you walked in the room. She looked up to you so much. That's when it made sense. She followed you onto the Mendel, didn't she?"

"She did. We met when she just got in the program, and I was an intern at Arcturus ground control."

"Really, that far back? I never knew that."

"You could have asked. You could have tried to get to know her."

 _Any of us,_ she finished silently.

Alexander gave a wistful smile to no one on particular.

"She was scared of me," he said.

"Not you, just what you stood for," said Salome."Her dad was military, horrible temper."

"Never knew that either."

The pilot chair let out a creak as Alexander rested his full weight against its back.

"She didn't want people to know, but if it it's eating at you this badly she'd be fine with me telling you. She was kind like that." Salome set the roomba down.

"My attitude probably didn't help ease her consciousness any," Alexander said." It was my first post since special op, it's hard to switch gears. I could never shake the feeling something was closing in out here in the darkness. I couldn't get off edge. The dynamic wasn't what I was used, you were all so complacent all the time. Like nothing bad could ever happen."

"Why did you leave special ops?"

Alexander looked at her, eyebrows creased in pain rather than anger. For all their clashing and miscommunication, Salome knew what had happened without him have to say anything. It was obvious losing people was a sore spot. She raised her hand up to stop him from answering.  He spoke again after a short silence.

"What I really hated was that you could've replaced me. You're a natural leader, you know that? People like you instinctively, and you know what needs to be done. The military is all I've ever known, but you could do my job with your hands tied behind your back. Still, I thought maybe you understood where I was coming from, but I guess that wasn't the case."

Alexander was becoming uncharacteristically verbose and emotional. No, Salome thought, he was always emotional, he just vented it all wrong.  

"I don't have the heart or the stomach for what you do, Ander."

"Neither do I, as it turns out."

Salome had watched too many lives fall apart that day to sit and watch one of the most selfless men she'd ever met do the same. He was difficult, and he didn't really know himself, but he was one of the good ones. If she had been more even-tempered like Vendall, she could have seen it months ago. It destroyed him that people had died under his command. He saw all of them as individuals, knew their strengths, and was proud to lead them. He mourned them as individuals too. He hadn't cared about Elliot anymore than the next soldier, he just wanted to know her like a comrade.

"But we're doing it. Right now, together this time."

Salome walked over to him and reached out her hand. Alexander let out a mixture between a sob and a laugh, and took her hand. Salome pulled on his arm to coax him out of the chair.

"Okay, okay," Alexander chuckled.

She squeezed his hand, and gave him her best look of determination.  He returned the look as best he was able, and that was all Salome could really ask of him, or anyone else.

 

 

With everyone safely aboard, there was one final problem to their escape.

"We may have to blow up the hanger," Salome said.

Her announcement was met with surprise and scrutiny. Except for Ed. Ed just laughed.

"More specifically," Salome raised her hands up to quell the noise."We may have to blow a hole in the hanger door. This ship was made to test rock and soil samples, so we were given a supply of mining explosives."

Alexander and Cyrus walked back into the room, carefully stacked the circular explosives from storage in the corner.

"Surely the hanger was built to withstand things like that," Lisa said.

"Most likely, but it's our only option if we can't restart the power," said Cyrus.

More surprise filled the air.

"How are going to do that?" a woman asked.

"Mike and I both work with machines. If it can be done, we can figure it out. Probably," said Cyrus.

"No one but the four of us has to go down," said Salome, pointing to Mike, Cyrus, and Alexander.

"Chang will keep everything under control until we get back. If anything happens, she'll know what to do-" said Alexander.

"Did you hear that?" Chang interrupted

Everyone froze. Salome heard a buzzing coming from outside the Mendel. She looked out of the cockpit to try and see what was happening. She couldn't make out anything unusual in the red leer of the backup lights.

Suddenly, the hanger wasn't dyed red anymore. The lights were on.

"What..." Salome whispered.

There was a abrupt sound of something snapping in the distance. Salome's attention was drawn to the elevator. It had arrived. The zip line had broken, but the hook was still firmly in place. The doors slide open. Tatum Vendall eyed the hook curiously as he stepped out of the elevator, followed by people in engineer uniform. Salome whipped around and flew out of the cock pit.

"Is that...?"

She heard Alexander leave the question unfinished and she ran out of the living space and down the ramp.  She was crying before she even got down to the hanger floor, but she was smiling too.

"Tatum!" she called.

Vendall's attention was pulled from the grappling hook over to Salome, running fast but ungracefully over to him. She could see shock tense up his body before darted off to the stairs on his right.

"Salome!"

They met in the middle of the hanger in hug that lifted Salome off her feet and spun her around.  

"I thought you were dead," She sobbed into his shoulder." I missed you so much, I felt so lost."

"How can that be? You always know what to do."

Salome stepped back and smacked his shoulder lightly, in jest.

"I've been bullshitting my way up and down this whole ship, and you have the gall to tell me I know what I'm doing?"

"How did you get down here? Those things are all over the stairs."

"Air vents and zip lines."

"Oh, that's what that was," said Vendall looking backward.

"We're real happy for you guys, but we need to haul ass right now."

The mechanics who had been with Vendall approached them.

"We'd love to give you a moment, but we don't have any to spare," said a woman.

"Of course Carla," said Vendall."Let me open the hanger."

The group of them rushed back to the Mendel while Vendall split off. Salome followed him. Vendall didn't tell her to go back. They entered a small room full of windows with the command consoles lining the walls. Vendall wandered up and down the computers until he found what he was looking for.

"Admittedly, I've never done this before," he said.

"No time like the present," she replied."How did you get the power back on?"

"I was down in engineering when they hit us. Managed to hide inside the machinery, got a nice steam burn on my back for that one. They left once the generators were on fire and the surviving engineers and I have been trying to fix it ever since. It took the six of us to get one of them up and running again, and I can't make any promises for how long it'll last."

On cue, the giant doors screeched as they began to open. Visible through the widening gap was the Hades gamma in all its glory, still studded with shrapnel and wreckage from the battles.

"Let's go," Vendall smiled.

Salome smiled back and ran over to the Mendel. With everyone aboard, Alexander turned the ship around and got it in position to take off. The doors were still in the process of opening when the ship was poised depart, but Chang wasn't going to wait around. As soon as there was enough space, she ordered Alexander to take off.  Then, for the second time in minutes, Salome heard a peculiar noise. Abruptly, the hanger doors began closing again. Chang visibly paled.

"The power is still on, why is this happening?" She turned to ask the crew.

"They're back," Lisa seethed.

Alexander turned on the rear view cameras. Displayed on the screen were multiple hostiles in their  battle armor, guns at the ready. They were closing in on the Mendel fast, their long limbs moving swiftly. Salome looked at the hanger doors. Even if they throttled it, they wouldn't make it in time. A fight would surely cost them several people seeing as they had no armor, and the Mendel had no guns. The odds were not in their favor. Either they all died getting crushed by the hanger doors, or they lose half their numbers in a fight they may not win. It was either everybody, almost everybody-

"Or just one," Salome said under her breath.

Before anyone could react, Salome grabbed one of the explosives from the corner and hit the button to open the ramp.  She padded around her jumpsuit and felt her pistol and Mike's knife still in her pockets. Sounds of gun fire rattled off the sides of the ship and the back of the open ramp. The Mendel wasn't built for that kind of assault, she needed to hurry.

"What do you think you're doing?" Vendall grabbed her arm.

It was the first time he'd ever been angry with her, and she resigned herself to the fact it would be the last.

"Chang, this is our last chance. You drafted me yourself, you know the cost of such things," Salome called to the cockpit.

Chang stood bracing the doorway, eyeing her with a mix of appraisal and concern.

"Let her go, Doctor," Chang said sternly.

Vendall didn't let go. He kept eye contact with Salome, pleading with her.

"You said I always know what to do," Salome said."This is what I've got. We can't waste time."

"I don't want to believe it," he said, voice thick.

"Salome, please, let's just think for a moment," Mike pleaded.

"There's no time, she's already decided," said Lisa.

"Shut up!" Alexander shouted from the pilot's seat.

"I need you all to be okay," Salome said.

Her eyes watered, as she looked straight into Vendall's eyes. For Salome, it was a catch twenty-two. If these people died, especially Vendall, and she survived, she'd wish she was dead. But to save them, she'd have to sacrifice herself. When it came down to a moment like this, she realized she didn't really mind that last part.

"I can't do it for myself, I need you to be okay."

Vendall let go, and let his hand brush her cheek before she turned down the ramp. He understood her, she knew. He knew he couldn't stop her, even if they argued for hours, because he knew what she was. She made her choice, and all he could do was respect it, even if it hurt. And, in bitter truth, there was no time to mull over other options. He didn't need to say anything else because there was nothing that could be said to encompass all the layers of that single moment.  He understood, and she knew that, and that was enough. Still, he spoke.

"I'm so lucky I met you."

Salome smiled at him, a genuine, affectionate smile. She looked over at everyone huddled together, trying to store that sight in her mind before she swerved off the ramp and headed right for the enemy lines. They opened fire in her direction. Plasma beam whistled passed her.  Sliding the knife out of her jumpsuit, she located the detonator on the explosive. She turned the knife on, and jammed it's red hot blade just under the plastic. It began to beep in warning of the inevitable blast. Then, she threw it. The hostiles jumped to dodge, but the bomb landed just in front of them and went off with a deafening bang.

She hoped Mike wouldn't mind. He did love that knife.

Salome had already changed directions to head for the command console, but she could feel the heat burning up her left side. Her ears were ringing so loud she couldn't hear anything else. She glanced back to see a few of them struggling to get up. The others that were on the ground were still moving as well. Salome knew the single explosive wouldn't be enough to get through their armor without a direct hit, but what she really needed was head start anyway.

She reached the control panel and reopened the hanger doors. They slid apart slowly at an agonizing rate. She tossed a look over her shoulder to see three hostiles back on their feet moving toward her. She couldn't get passed them to rejoin her friends, but she could keep them from closing the doors again while they escaped.  Pulling her pistol out of her pocket, she crouched by the open door to the command room and pivoted her body to turn and fire. She missed, not surprisingly. But she only needed to make them cautious.  Sure enough, all three dove out the way. She kept up her barrage.

The Mendel raised itself off the ground again, and flew toward the open doors. The hostiles just getting to their feet let out one last volley to take the ship out, but it sailed unperturbed out into space. She did it.

Salome let her arms fall down, and sank against the door frame. She did it. She kept her promise. Triumphant laughter worked its way out of her. She felt elated and yet at peace. Heavy footsteps reverberated behind her. Placing her pistol on the ground, she stood. Slowly, she moved into the hostiles view. They had all gotten to their feet, with various levels of damage to their armor. The closest one to her was missing part of his helmet's eye shield, through which Salome could see a single eye. Dwarfed by the black sclera was an iris of deep brown, lighter in the center than the edges. It reminded her of Elliot's eyes. The similarity didn't sit too well with Salome considering how she had died, but it also struck her as ironic.

Salome kicked the pistol over to the aliens, but she didn't raise her hands. She wasn't going to fight anymore, there was no point. She wasn't the kind of person who wanted to go out guns blazing like Cyrus and Mike. True to her words to Alexander, she didn't have the heart or the stomach for it. Still, some distinctly proud, human part of her didn't want to raise her hands in surrender. Come what may, she'd look it in the eye.

Lisa was right about the size. As the brown-eyed one got closer, she realized how massive it was. Definitely encroaching on seven feet. Its helmet ended in a point on the back of its head, and Salome wondered what they looked like without them. She'd only seen half of one, after all.

 The brown-eyed alien cocked its head at Salome's pistol before kicking it out of the way. It put its assault rifle on its back, seemly deciding she was no threat. It raised its three-fingered hands to its head as it stepped toward her. Salome held her breath as it removed the broken helmet.

Its shell-like hide was a pale grey, unlike the one she had observed, but it had the same white markings only in a different pattern. She noticed the small rectangular plates above its eyes shifting downward, which gave it a look of irritation, or perhaps it was inspection. How could she know?  The crest on the top of  its head was about a foot long, from what she could tell, and made up of several elongated segments.  It bent down to meet her at eye level. Its breath was warm, just like a human. Salome gave a nervous glance at its conical teeth peeking through the plates of its mouth. On signal of her attention, it flared its mandibles out to reveal the rest of its jagged maw.  She darted her eyes back up to meet its. The eyebrow-like plates relaxed, and the mandibles closed. Once again it cocked its head to the side, and then let out a rumble. There was a pause. It let out the same rumble again, and searched her eyes expectantly.

It was talking to her.

"Pardon?" she asked, her ears still ringing a bit.

The alien pulled its head back in something akin to astonishment, and turned to growl at its companions. One of them responded, to which the brown-eyed hostile dipped its head.  It turned back to Salome and put its hand on her shoulder. She flinched hard. Its mandibles flickered. Pressuring her shoulder, it maneuvered her to face the stairwell door.

The last thing Salome remembers thinking before waking up surrounded by smoke and fire, was that she really hated stairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First contact achieved! It's been a long time coming, thanks for sticking with me. The next chapter was the concept I had in mind when I set out to write the story, so I'm excited for you guys to read it. As always, comments are appreciated and constructive criticism is welcome. New chapter out tomorrow!


	8. Faceless Bodies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This chapter has graphic depictions of violence and brief suicidal thoughts, proceed with that in mind.

Chapter 8- Faceless Bodies

Salome gagged on the smoke that tried to fill her lungs and sat up. She was laying on the other side of the hanger's command room, limbs askew, head throbbing. She massaged her temples as she tried to recall what had happened. A blast had hit the MacArthur, probably on the crew deck. The aliens seemed just as unprepared as she had been. Maybe it was a stray shot, or maybe the hostiles saw the power come back on and tried to take the ship out once and for all, their own remaining soldiers be damned.

Bracing her hands on the ground, Salome tried to stand but instead she was struck by another fit of dry heaving. Blood dripped onto the floor, and Salome lifted her hand to her head. She couldn't tell where the blood was coming from, adrenaline stopped her from feeling any pain.

Stumbling to her feet, Salome held onto the door way and looked around. The infrastructure that held up the hanger's ceiling had fallen during the blast. Metal, plaster, and wire were scattered everywhere, but a huge portion had fallen squarely in the middle of the docking bay. There was fire on the far side of the pile, and soon it would be everywhere.

Salome squinted her eyes, willing them to focus. She couldn't see the aliens.  Knees unsteady, she walked over to the pile of debris, tripping every now and again on loose wreckage.

 When she was almost to the heap, she felt her feet start to slide out from under her. Salome caught herself on some rebar, and looked down. There was something slick and blue pooling beneath her, seeping from the pile of debris. Her bleary eyes focused on a particular piece of metal next to her foot. She couldn't place it, but something about it wasn't right.  She let her legs give out and sat on her knees in the blue liquid. Salome grabbed at the baffling piece of metal, only to reflexively let go the instant she got hold of it. It was warm. The liquid that was soaking into her clothes was warm too. It wasn't a piece of metal, and she was sitting in blood.

Salome retched onto the wreckage in front of her. She didn't have much in her stomach, but her body wouldn't let her stop gagging. Tears welled up in her eyes as the left over nausea choked its way out of her. Once she could breathe again, Salome stood. She felt the blood slide down her legs, and heard drops hitting the puddle below. Air seemed to abandon her. She heaved in and out, but it didn't feel like it was enough expand the tightness in her chest. Her vision started to get fuzzy around the edges. Salome dug her fingernails into her palms and gritted her teeth. She forced herself to breathe slower. 

The Hades gamma glittered in her peripheral. She turned her head to gaze at it. She wondered if she could simply throw herself through the mass effect field that kept the vacuum of space out of the hanger, or if it would stop her.  She heard being spaced was painful, though, and she didn't want to hurt anymore.

Still, she felt a longing for the stars shimmering in the darkness. She wished she could be one of them, burning bright without a care. If only it was that easy. Being a human was all dead ends and blind corners. Nothing held its place, it was hard to hold on to anything at all, let alone anything good. That familiar grey feeling crawled its way through her body and sat in her throat, heavy.

A shape lay in the distance, near the mass effect barrier. It was her pistol. Salome stepped over to it. She checked the magazine. Two rounds left.

Sirens wailed and the lights went red again. An automated message played over the loud speaker.

"MacArthur losing gravity. Collision imminent."

The short warning looped without end. The ship's sensors detected that it was about to collide with something big. Maybe an asteroid, or perhaps it had gotten stuck in a planet's gravitational pull. It didn't matter. She knew she wasn't going to make it.

But she could chose how she went.

The bullets looked very sinister. They didn't look like salvation. But, Salome thought, she was practically a ghost already. She popped the magazine back into place.  She felt nauseous again, but for a different reason. Salome slumped against a wall.

She struggled with the idea of a god. It was a nice, comforting concept, but there were so many of them. How could anyone be sure they were praying to the right one? If there was a heaven, any heaven, Elliot was there. Her mom and her aunt, too. She knew most gods frowned upon what she was considering, but she hoped maybe they'd make an exception for her. She had tried so hard, and Salome wanted to see them.

Over her contemplation, Salome heard a groan. It had a recognizable, dual toned quality to it. It was one of the aliens. She stood up again and tried to follow the sound. She walked past the pile of wreckage and found the alien on the other side, laying against the heap near the flames.  Its hand was gripped to its left side, blue blood leaking through its fingers. Salome walked over to it.

She felt no fear looking at it now. All her fear and bravery had been used up. Everything was grey,  and she had nothing to lose. She crouched near it, and tilted her head to look at its face. Brown eyes opened to meet hers. It was the one with the broken helmet. She held its gaze unflinching. Its eyes were heavy lidded, like it was struggling to keep them open. They opened wide again when it saw the gun in her hand.

She had two bullets, and it wasn't going to make it. It would be a merciful thing to do, since the alien was clearly in pain with no chance at survival. Still, the idea made her stomach turn. She wasn't angry at it, specifically. She was angry at situation and the resulting damages, but there was no rage in her body for the creature in front of her. It was like her, another faceless body out in the fray, commanded by people who would never know their names or their sacrifices.

She didn't _want_ to kill it, but she also didn't like the idea of simply abandoning it. She felt guilty, like leaving a dying bird on the side of the road. Indifference was akin to cruelty in these circumstances, or so she felt.

She raised herself back up and put her finger on the trigger. The alien was glaring at her now, brown eyes narrow and mandibles open in a snarl. The creature's mandibles closed flush against its face, but it kept eying her. In the pinpoint pupils of its familiar eyes, Salome saw something. On some basic, instinctual level, she knew it was daring her to do it. Not asking, not demanding. It wanted her to have the gall to point a gun at it. Courage and pride were reflected in its eyes. It had as much a soul and personality as she did.

Suddenly, it wasn't a faceless body. It had a family and friends. It had a name and a hometown.

 She would never see Elliot again, not alive. Nina, her patient roommate, would never greet her at the airport and congratulate her for a job well done. She would never go back to Allendale, Illinois. She would never find Earth Two. She was bitter and angry, but she was also drained. She was tired of bodies piling up when she could do something to stop it.

Salome thought hard. The creatures must have a had a way to get on the ship, perhaps a shuttle. She remembered that Cyrus told her they boarded on the crew deck and engineering. The crew deck was in rubble in front of her, so that was impossible. Below them, engineering was on fire, but it was the only option.

The hostile before her sneered at her in contempt, life still coursing through its veins. It was gravely injured, but if she hurried, it had a chance. The grey feeling escaped her chest with a sudden exhale of breath.

She decided not to be a ghost just yet.

Salome all but threw the gun away, and bent down next to it. She was close, so close it could kill her if it wanted to. It hissed when she gently tried to pry its fingers off of its wound. She turned up her head to look it in the eyes, the only form of communication they had, and tried with only a gaze to tell it she meant no harm. It didn't move its hand, but it stopped resisting.

The wound was a long, oozing gash, deepest in the middle, but Salome couldn't tell how far down it went.  She felt along the alien's back for some kind of letch to get the armor off, which she found under its arm. She gave the latch a pull and moved to the other side. The hostile only watched her, not moving.  With a pop, the chest plate became unhinged, and Salome struggled to pull it off. It was heavy, far heavier than anything a human could feasibly wear and still be mobile in. She heard the hostile inhale sharply as the weight was removed. Underneath was a skin-tight black garment that went up to the alien's neck and over the odd shell-like swoop on its back.  Its waist was almost disproportionally thin compared to its shoulders, and the skin there was less plated than its upper body. The garment was torn where the gash was, and Salome tore it even further to have space to work. She used the excess fabric to wipe up some of the blood. The injury extended past the muscle and down into the peritoneum. She had no idea if any organ damage had been sustained. She wasn't exactly a surgeon.

As she dabbed up some more blood, the hostile bent its neck to try and catch her eye. She looked up at it, and could tell it wanted to know her intentions. There was no way to tell it what she was going to do, so she smiled reassuringly. The alien's head bobbed back in confusion.

Salome guided one thee fingered hand to keep pressure on the gash while she got up and headed toward the fire. The flames had taken up half the debris pile now, and were encroaching on where the alien was laid. She held up the crook of her arm over her mouth to obstruct the smoke from entering her lungs. It was harder to see the closer she got, but she managed to find a loose piece of rebar under some crumbled plaster. The metal was warm, but not nearly hot enough for what she was planning. She stuck the half the rebar into the flames as her eyes watered uncontrollably. She let it stay there for as long as she could spare, which wasn't a long time, but when she pulled the rebar out, the tip was a glowing orange.

"Yes," Salome said in triumph.

She hurried over to the wounded alien and tried to move its hand off the gash. It let out some kind of feeble shriek as it darted its eyes back between the glowing piece of rebar and Salome's face.

"Please just trust me, please, please, please," Salome pleaded.

Once again the creature sought Salome's eye contact, bending its head downward. It must have seen something in her it was willing to bet on, because the hostile's hand fell from its guarded position. Salome pinched the edges of the wound together with her free hand and brought the rebar closer. The alien seemed to understand because it helped her seal the gap shut with one hand, while the other curled into a fist at its side in anticipation.

She let the rebar make contact with skin and the alien howled in pain. Its scream was almost prehistoric, a mix between a screech and a roar.  Salome winced and apologized, even though it didn't know what she was saying and her condolences were worthless. She rolled the rebar along the wound until it was precariously sealed by the seared flesh.

Then hostile was now hunched over, mandibles and jaw shut tight, eyes closed. Salome would like to have given it more time to fight through the pain, but there was no time to spare. She grabbed a sharp section of jagged metal from the pile and made a nick in the fabric of her jumpsuit. She picked the leg that was least soaked in blood and tore the material off. The air was brisk even with the flames, and Salome's leg prickled with goose bumps.  She slipped her arms around its slim waist as the alien made a startled noise, and pulled the fabric tight around the wound. The binding would help keep it sealed while they moved, or at least that's what she hoped.

Salome placed her hands under the hostile's arms and gave it a tug to urge it on its feet. It didn't budge at all, instead brought its hands down to its legs and began unfastening the rest of its armor. Salome bent down to help it, and it looked at her through the corner of its eye while its hands kept working.

She imagined it was beyond confused. There was absolutely no reason for her to help it, at least not a reason that made sense to anyone but Salome.

Once the rest of the armor was removed and the alien lay only in a black under-suit, Salome held out her hands to help it to its feet. Its hands dwarfed her own, and they felt rougher on the back than the palm. The talons still made her nervous, but she tried not to let it show. The brown-eyed alien staggered to its feet, using Salome for balance. Once she draped its arm over her shoulders, it let some of its weight relax onto her. And damn, if it wasn't heavy.

Together they moved slowly over to the stairwell. In order to use the elevator, they would have to go up just as many stairs as it took to get them down, and Salome was partial to let gravity help her with the burden of the hostile's weight.

 As the doorway drew closer, Salome felt tightness build in her chest again. She really didn't want to know, but she had to find out.

It was worse. Whatever she had imagined, it was worse. The floors in the MacArthur were a standard white tile. Everything was red, though. There was so much blood she could see her reflection, tinted red. She cast a gaze up. Arms and legs were visible sticking out through the railing on the flights of stairs above her. Down the next flight, toward engineering, a man was slumped in the corner of the landing, hole blown open in his chest.

The alien was looking at her. She could feel its gaze on her face. She could barely make out any expressions it made, but she didn't want to know how it was looking at her just then. Instead she stepped forward and it followed her lead.

It was hard not to slip on the blood, but there was less of it the further down they got. Salome's shoulder ached under the alien's weight, but they didn't have time to stop.  They reached the engineering deck, where the hostiles had boarded. Sure enough, there was a some kind of protrusion lodged in the hull on the far side of the deck, which Salome presumed was the hostile boarding vessel's exterior. It definitely didn't look like it was supposed to be there, as the steel surrounding it was scorched and torn.

The generators were in flames again. It would only be a matter of time before the power went back out. Smoke stung her eyes once more, and the heat was already making her sweat.

"Perfect," she muttered.

The alien let out a small rumble.

"You seeing what I'm seeing?" she asked.

It rumbled again.

They probably weren't actually communicating, Salome resigned, but it was nice to have someone to vent the frustration to. Maybe someone who couldn't reply was perfect for that job.

They would have to be within three feet of the flames, hugging the wall, to get to the hostile ship. Salome could practically feel the burns forming on her skin, especially her unprotected leg. Se gritted her teeth and resolved to simply bear it.  As they approached closer, the hostile stopped moving.

"What's wrong?" she said.

The alien tapped its face, talon clicking on the hardened plates. It took its weight off her shoulder, and Salome could immediately feel the blood rushing back into her skin as the numbness subsided. The alien stumbled and caught itself on the wall.

"Be careful!" she admonished.

She went over to assist it back onto her shoulder. Instead of letting her, it tugged on her hand, guiding her to the right side of its body. If Salome supported it on the right instead of the left, where she had been, then the hostile would be the one closest to the inferno. Sweat dribbled down her forehead, and she hastily wiped it up with her sleeve. Was it actually concerned about her getting burned? She couldn't argue that its armor-like plates were likely more fire-proof than her fleshy skin was, but it was also very injured. Maybe it was trying to keep her alive so that she would continue to help it. That made sense, she thought. That was probably it.

It gave her arm another tug, and tapped its face again. Perplexed, she allowed it to lead her over to its right. It took the lead in draping its arm over her shoulder, and even took the first step forward.

They neared the generators and the heat became immense. Salome glanced worriedly at the alien, who turned its head to her and flared out its mandibles before looking ahead, determined.

Salome wished she could read its mind.

They reached the vessel, a rounded extrusion jutting out of the MacArthur's hull. It was almost as if the hostile ship had pierced the MacArthur's steel with sheer force, and acted like a cork to keep the void of space out. The outer surface was pitch black, with a some kind of touch pad on the far left side. 

The alien hit the touch pad without precision. Foreign symbols appeared and it tapped a few of them in sequence. The rounded ship opened in segments, almost like a flower blooming for the first time. The alien led her inside.

The entire vessel kept a rounded, oblong shape. Salome could see where the pilots sat amid a vast control panel, and the curved glass that allowed a view of the Hades gamma. Immediately to the left and right upon entering were rows of seats. She guessed there was room for about eight people including the pilots.

The alien stumbled forward with her aid toward the controls. It sat in the pilot's seat with a heavy thud, and winced as it touched its wound. Salome could see fresh blood doting the fabric. The cauterized flesh must have opened up some, Salome could only pray it didn't fully dissect before they got to...wherever.

She sat down in the co-pilot's chair to the right and watched the hostile punch buttons and turn dials. The controls had an echo of human engineering, but the language that labeled all the switches was indecipherable.

A hum resounded through the ship as it came to life. The sound of metal scrapping metal screeched in Salome's ears as the hostile vessel dislodged itself from the MacArthur. As it flew away, Salome could see that the MacArthur was in fact being pulled into a red planet's orbit. She placed a hand against the cool glass, and it fogged around her fingers. So many people, gone.

In the reflection of the glass, she could see the alien staring at her. The ship must have been on an automated path, because the hostile definitely wasn't putting in any effort to pilot the thing. Instead, one arm hung loosely at the side of the chair while the other was putting pressure on its injury.  Its breathing had crackles upon exhalation, which Salome knew meant there was fluid in its lungs. Not good, it didn't have much time.

She swung around in her seat to meet its eyes again. They looked sleepy, heavy-lidded.

"Hey," Salome said."Try not to fall asleep, okay. Just keep fighting. I'm sure we're not far from your friends."

Friends. Was that the right word? It sounded juvenile coming from her mouth.

It rumbled again, softer this time. Salome hoped that wasn't a sign of it losing strength. The alien held out its hand to her and hummed. Salome chose not to question its intentions and gave it her hand. Its brown eyes dropped to examine her, and its thumb traced over each finger individually.  She expected it might have thought having five fingers as opposed to three was odd. She waggled her digits a bit to give it something to focus on, to distract it from the pain.

It laughed.

Salome's head whipped up to look at its face. It really sounded like a laugh, although it had that same peculiar, metallic quality to it. The alien wasn't looking at her, eyes still downcast at her hand. It turned her hand over and drummed its fingers over her palm. Curious, Salome laughed, half genuine, half inquisitive.

Now they were looking at each other, surprised. Hundreds of thousands of light years away, millions of years of separate history, and they laughed the same way.

Salome laughed again, for real this time. Something in her must have snapped, or maybe it had worked its way free. She felt free. She wasn't scared or panicked, even as they traveled to what was certain death for her, she was okay.

Even after everything that had happened, everything she'd seen, Salome could never quiet buy into the 'us' versus 'them' mentality. The soft, deep chuckle that found its way out of the alien next to her was something that cemented, in her mind, that that sort of thinking was all bullshit.

It was hard for her to imagine a life after the war, in an uncertain future. What she said to Vendall was the truth. She couldn't do it for herself. But for some unexplainable, fantastic reason, she could do it for the person holding her hand. Maybe that in of itself was selfish, to rely on someone else for a reason to live, but she didn't care. She wasn't living long. But if she could get the alien out alive, she hazily thought she might die content. Not happy, not any less angry,  but content.  Their interaction was remarkable in its own right, even if it was bittersweet.

That feeling must have been what it was to be out in the open, with the stars. Everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title drop! The real difficulty in writing this chapter was making Salome's motivations for saving the turian make sense, please tell me if I need to re-write some stuff. Thanks for the comments and the kudos, I am writing the new chapters right now.


	9. Charades

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Salome tries to keep the turian alive while they head to an unknown destination.

Chapter 9- Charades

The lights in the small shuttle were dim. Salome could see the glow from the stars pass over the alien's face in bright flashes as they zoomed through the Hades gamma. It was having more trouble staying awake, and she came to rest on the floor beside its chair to keep it from falling asleep. That had been some time ago, and the alien had ceased its hums and rumbles. Instead, it was now pinching the ends of her shoulder-length hair, rubbing them between its fingers.  The action might have been endearing, obviously motivated by curiosity, if it hadn't been apparent that the creature was growing more delirious by the minute.

Salome felt its hand slip away from her and flop gently at its side. She looked up to see that its eyes had shut. Cold panic rushed through her like a icy river.

"Hey," she called.

She shook its shoulder and called again. Its eyes opened back up, weakly, and it shivered. Salome stood and placed her hand on its neck where the plates didn't reach. It was far cooler than it had been before. She checked the binding around its waist. There was no new blood, but that didn't mean it wasn't hemorrhaging internally.

"Okay, let's try something different," she said.

Salome placed her hands under its arms to guide it up on its feet. It obeyed without hesitation, but it had little strength. Supporting its weight, she led it over to the row of seats. She placed it in the middle and sat to its right, away from the injury.  Salome pulled its arm over her shoulder again and sank into its side to share her body heat. The position would have been comfortable with another human, but the hard curve of its natural armor was too stiff against her ribs

It hummed again, looking at her. She wondered how much of the situation it really understood. Not only was there a language barrier, the alien was also losing more of its awareness the longer its injury went untended. She had to keep it awake.

"So, this friend of mine named Marianne. She's kind of a workaholic without social skills, but she's nice. She once fell asleep on my shoulder like this when we were watching a movie. She was so embarrassed when she woke up because she didn't really know me at the time. I invited her over with my other friend, El-"

Salome trailed off as a lump formed in her throat. She swallowed it, and continued.

"Marianne was distant the first few times I met her, and I wanted us to get to know each other before we went on a yearlong mission, so we had a movie night. I honestly can't believe she agreed, but after that, she acted like we'd know each other for years. I guess just she needed a push, ya know?"

Salome craned her head to look at the alien. It was looking back at her, lazily. Its eyes closed for a bit too long, and Salome brought her hand up to pat its face.

"Stop that, you'll have time to sleep in the space hospital."

The alien growled in protest and yanked its face away from her hand, eyes still closed.

"You're acting like me at six a.m. I am not a good role model, cut it out."

It flopped its head to rest in her hand. Its whole body felt limp and lifeless.

"Please stop that, please. I can't do this again, just wake up."

Its eyes opened in tiny slits.

"There we go, that's a good lizard-bird."

The alien rumbled and hissed, and Salome knew it was talking to her. She wondered if it realized she couldn't understand.

"I _want_ to understand."

Salome traced her thumb over the curved white markings under its eyes that extended up its brow bone.

"What do these mean?"

It didn't reply, but it did start letting out what sounded suspiciously like a purr. It was familiar and almost soothing to hear.

Abruptly, the vessel began to shutter and light poured in through the windshield. Salome leaned out of her seat and saw they had landed in the some kind of hanger made of same pitch black metal as the outside of their small shuttle. The glass became obstructed by a protective screen sliding over it and her view was lost.

They had reached their destination.

The touch pad next to the door lit up, possibly indicating that it was okay to depart.

"You ready? We have to hurry now."

Salome stood up and offered her hands to it. It blinked at her blearily and cast a glance at the door before looking back at her. It hissed something.

"Come on, you're not well."

She grabbed its hands herself and tugged. It tugged back and pulled her face close to its own. Its mandibles and jaws opened and closed as it tried to tell her something.

"If you think I can understand you, you're in worse shape than I thought. Let's go!"

With one final pull the alien came to its feet and Salome wasted no time in positioning herself to support it. They limped over to the door.

"Okay, I don't know how this works. You're up, pal."

It didn't move, just looked at her some more.

"Fine, but don't blame me if we go up in flames. I'm garbage at this stuff."

Salome lifted her hand and went to press the biggest button on the screen. Not faultless logic, but it was a start, she thought.

A clawed hand rested itself over the entire touch pad, blocking her from using it. Salome jerked her head up, mouth open to reprimand it. Her words got caught in her throat when she saw its face.  Its jaw was shut tight, so were the mandibles. The plates above its eyes were raised, and its eyes were wide. Salome perceived the expression to convey some kind of concern for her. Its actions certainly reflected that, but, she thought solemnly, she would never truly know. Even so, she spoke to it as if that had been its intention.

"I'm not making it out. I'm not going back home. But _you_ are. You are, and that means so much to me. You'll never know why, or what the hell I'm even saying, but I need you to be okay. Okay?"

Their eyes stayed glued to each other as Salome wordlessly brought her hand up to the alien's, and pulled it softly off the touch pad. She pressed the biggest button. The door opened.

_Well, what do you know?_

Another hostile was waiting on the other side of the door, no armor. But it did have a gun, which it pulled from its holster the second it saw Salome. There was a ruckus all around them. Salome's eyes shifted back and forth as hostiles swarmed over to the shuttle, guns drawn.

She felt the alien she was holding up start to go limp, and she gave it a shake to jolt it out of the spell. The other aliens didn't like that.

They stepped closer, and screeched at her. She supposed they wanted her to hand their comrade over, which she would oblige without contending.

"Come and take him from me," Salome tilted her head to indicated who she was referring to.

She didn't really know if it was a 'him', but who was going to correct her?  The crowd of armed hostiles parted in the middle, ushering out of the way of one that appeared to be a leader of some kind. Its hide was also pale grey, almost white, but it had blue markings. It was taller than the others as well, and in different uniform.

It came up to Salome, a little more than a foot away. Its eyes were a brilliant blue. Salome had never seen anything like them. It offered out its arm. Salome heaved the wounded alien over to its leader, who showed no difficulty shouldering the burden of its weight.  The leader rumbled something, to which Salome's travel companion wheezed a reply.  The leader looked back at her. Its face was stone. She couldn't read it at all.

The leader turned away and called out to the others. A few of them came to support the injured hostile, and more still came over to surround Salome.

She still wasn't scared. They had no reason to torture her since she couldn't actually tell them anything. At worst, they were going to shoot her, which she was at peace with. She figured she had outrun the reaper far enough, and her luck was over. 

Salome looked them all in the eyes, every single one.

 

 

Previously unconsidered by Salome's adrenaline-fueled, sleep deprived mind, there was actually a third option that didn't involve death or torture, where the aliens threw her into a plain white room nothing but a mirror and left her there for hours.

She was almost insulted, really. If they were going to keep her around they might as well pay attention to her, not that she craved their interest of course. She was just really tired, and consequently peevish.

Salome lay on the floor of the cell and closed her eyes. The blood-orange of her inner eyelid lit up like stained glass. She huffed in annoyance.

"Could you at least turn off the lights? Are we in the center of the sun?"

She sat up. She couldn't see any surveillance cameras, but that didn't mean they weren't there.

"They just have really tiny surveillance cameras," she muttered to herself.

Salome cast a look to the mirror, which was built into the wall. A tingle resonated at the base of her spine. She got up and walked over to the mirror. There was a trick she learned in college about two-way mirrors. If you press your finger to the glass and there is a gap between the reflection and your finger, its normal. But, if the reflection touches your finger...

"You are being watched."

Salome frowned as her finger met with its reflection, before glaring into her own likeness. She hoped whoever was spying on her felt really unnerved by it.

Just then, the door to her cell slid open. What stepped into the cell was not an alien she'd seen before. It was definitely a different species. Salome marveled at that, and wondered how many kinds there were out there.

It was taller than her by a foot, with large black eyes that reminded her of the grey aliens from Roswell. Its forehead split into two prongs and its chest was strangely concave, like someone had given it a good punch and left a dent. Its knees bent in the opposite direction of as a human's, and it rested its weight on the balls of it feet. Digitigrade, like an ostrich, Salome thought.

The alien had its hands rested behind its back, posture straight. It had a pleased smile on its face as it walked over to her. Salome stepped away from the glass but didn't move toward it. The alien walked circles around her, looking her up and down. Salome folded her arms over her chest protectively, and narrowed her eyes at it. Whatever its objective, what it was doing was rude. The alien blinked at her, cocking its head. It tapped on the glass before pointing at her with a grin. Its teeth were blunt and rectangular, much less intimidating than the hostiles on the MacArthur. Its face portrayed more human facial expressions, and if that was anything to go by, it seemed impressed that she figured out it was watching her.

Salome wondered if she was the first human it had seen, and if it was unaware that they were an intelligent species. The mirror trick was easy to figure out. Just being alone in a room with only a mirror was kind of a giveaway. She didn't do anything to respond to its praise.

The grey alien kept smiling and called to someone over its shoulder. Two of the MacArthur's hostiles came inside the cell, but there was something different about them. The crests on their heads were practically nonexistent and they were shorter, with less bulk. They had face markings as well , one blue and one red.

Since they had predominately avian feature, and the male birds were always the ones with the extra ornaments, Salome theorized that these were female.

The two hostiles came over to her. One grabbed her arms roughly and the other held out what appeared to be hand cuffs. The grey alien barked something at them and the one holding the cuffs hissed back at him. They spoke in entirely different languages. The grey one had a high pitched, nearly human voice but its dialect was all gibberish. The hostiles spoke in hisses and rumbles that all sounded the same to Salome's ears. She was unsure how they managed to communicate at all.

The female holding Salome's wrists, the red one, eased her grip and her companion gently put the cuffs on her. They both looked over to the grey alien, as if to ask if it was happy. It must have told them to be more careful with her, which meant it didn't want her harmed. Looking at its black, pupil-less eyes and its toothy grin didn't make her feel safe, though.

The two females walked her out of the room and down a wide hallway. The white tile and walls reminded Salome of a hospital, doors dotted the hall every now and again. At the very end there was a large door she suspected led to the rest of the ship, but they stopped short and turned to the right.

The room they entered was quite plainly a shower room, with shower heads lining the far wall and a drain in the center. The red female went to turn on the faucet, and water gushed out. Salome was surprised that they bathed the same way, but she also pondered if the showers were actually for the grey aliens and not the avian ones. She had so many questions. Either way, though, she was excited not to be covered in soot and vent dust anymore.

The blue female next to her uncuffed her and pinched her sleeve. She jerked at the fabric and pointed to a red bin next to the door. She wanted her to strip, which was met by Salome glancing around nervously.

"Like, right now?" Salome said.

The alien stared blankly at her and pointed to the bin again. Salome turned around and started to unzip, only to realize that there was another alien in that direction. She hadn't taken her clothes off yet, but she felt naked on more than one level. There was no way around the situation, she concluded, and shirked herself of the torn and scorched Alliance jumpsuit. Standing in her underwear, she tossed the jumpsuit into the bin. The aliens didn't correct her, so she assumed she was on the right path. Salome removed her undergarments and disposed of those as well. The modest, private part of her didn't want to make eye contact with the aliens. Being forced to strip down in front of people she didn't know or trust was degrading, but the biologist part of her was curious how they would react to her unknown form.

Curiosity won out, and she looked at the red one by the showers. Salome recognized the look in the alien's eyes as not giving a shit, and she shrugged before walking over to the showers. She stuck her hand under the stream. It was boiling hot. Salome retracted her hands and shook it off the water. She looked at the alien, as pleading as she could manage.

 _Please don't give me third degree burns,_ she willed her eyes to say.

The alien tilted her head in mild confusion and stuck her own hand into the water, not even flinching. She looked at Salome with narrowed, judgment filled eyes, but turned the dial to what was hopefully a colder temperature. Satisfied, the female motioned for Salome to try again. It was still far hotter than her thin skin could withstand, but Salome debated just going ahead and searing her dermis layers off just to avoid having to ask twice. Her face must have given it away, because the red alien gestured at Salome with an outstretched hand while looking at her companion as if to say, 'Can you believe this?'

Still, the red female turned the dial back once more, and the water was finally bearable. Salome stepped under the spray and felt the grime dislodge from her skin. By the time the water was switched off, she felt like she had lost weight. She twisted her hair to wring the water out of it, the only action so far that made the red alien raise an eyebrow plate. The blue female gestured for Salome to walk over to the left side of the room into a glass chamber. The door was shut on her, and Salome looked around. There wasn't anything in the chamber, just the tile that covered the rest of the room. The blue one tapped on the glass to get Salome's attention. She was pointed toward a purple button on the wall next to her. Salome pressed it.

A loud whirring noise filled Salome's ear as a huge gust of wind hit her from above. She yelped instinctively, which actually made the red one laugh. The blue one elbowed her.  Salome was in a giant hair dryer, basically.  Of all the cultural differences they must have, she didn't expect major a divergence to be the belief in towels.

 

 

Salome was ushered back in her cell with her hair sticking up on all ends. The plain white gown she had been given fit like a giant tee-shirt and came down to her shins. It would have been comfortable if the material wasn't leaning on the scratchy side.

Her cell had a bed in it now, which she sat on while the grey alien was inspecting her forearms. The bed was stiff and the blanket was thin, but she was looking forward to being able to sleep. There was a tray of tools on a wheeled tabled next to the alien. Salome didn't recognize any of paraphernalia except for some test tubes and a jar of white powered that could have been any number of things.  The alien gave her tap on the inner crook of her elbow, and grabbed one of the tools. It just looked like a small, steel cylinder to her eyes, until the alien pressed a switch on the side and a four inch needle popped out the top.

Salome flinched on instinct. She wasn't squeamish when it came to needles, she had a decent pain tolerance, but there had to be some trust between her and the person sticking her. Currently, there was a poignant lack of trust  in the room.  The alien patted her palm reassuringly, which had the opposite effect, and stuck the needle in her vein. It was over in seconds, and she hadn't died, so Salome called it a win.

The alien donned some gloves and removed the needle from the device. It opened the cylinder and poured some her blood into a test tube. Then, it gently scooped some of the white powder into the test tube and gave it a shake. Her blood turned blue in the vial, and the alien nodded as if that was good.  It capped the cylinder with the rest of her blood, and trimmed some of her hair with a tool that didn't even look sharp.

It gathered up all of the bio samples and gear, and wheeled the table out of the room. It paused at the threshold of the door and turned to rub its stomach and cryptically point at her.

"Dude, what the fuck?"

The alien beamed at her, obviously overjoyed that she had spoken for the first time, and left the room.

Salome rubbed the sore spot on her arm and laid down on the bed. She had no idea what was going to happen from that point on. She was a prisoner, and most likely some kind of science experiment as well. She couldn't help but wonder what would happen when she out lived her usefulness. She thought of the others who had escaped. She would never know if they made it, but she chose to believe that they did, otherwise she would crumble. She chose to believe that the brown eyed hostile had made it as well, but somehow that felt more like a lie than the others. It had been so weak when she last saw it. Him. It was probably a him.

The door to the cell opened again. It was the two females with a blue tray of what appearded to be food. Or something like it. She sat up and the blue female handed her the tray. It had some kind of grey, lumpy goo and what looked like a red vegetable that had spontaneously mutated in the middle of its growth. Not everything edible was worthy of the term 'food', Salome decided.

She stared at it, hesitant. It didn't look like it was going to be tasty, but she could reconcile that if it kept her fed. However, the hostiles had dextro-rotational amino acids which meant their food did as well. If Salome ate it, she could die. But she'd also die if she didn't eat, and starvation was arguably the worse way to go.  

Picking up the utensil more like a scoopula than a spoon, Salome tried the goo first. It had the texture of oatmeal and everything bad about brussels sprouts. She had no reason to hide her disgust to she let it show plainly on her face. The red one laughed again.

The vegetables were better, and Salome had never been so grateful for water. After she was done, the blue one took back the tray and the both of them left the room. The lights were shut off and moment later, and Salome buried herself under the thin blanket, waiting for her throat to close up and cut off her oxygen supply.

She had nothing to judge the flow of time by. She laid in darkness not knowing if the minutes were really seconds, and if the red and blue duo had been gone for an hour or a moment. 

When the lights came back on, Salome didn't feel rested but she also wasn't dead. The grey alien came back into the cell,  hands behind its back. Another one of its species came into the room, pushing a cart with a tray of more food. Salome didn't feel hungry as the tray was placed on her lap. The mutated vegetable was still there, but the grey goo had been replaced with some kind of chopped meat. Salome poked it with her finger, and it bounced back like an extremely resilient tofu.

The other grey alien left, and the one that Salome presumed to be a scientist came over to her. It pointed at the vegetables on her tray and then rubbed its stomach for the second time in too few hours. Maybe Red and Blue had told it that she liked the veggies but not the goo, and it was trying to tell her it knew that. In which case, rubbing its stomach was code for food. Of course, that previously would have been clearer if it had given her the food _before_ it attempted to mime through their language barrier. For all she knew, rubbing one's belly was like flipping someone the bird.

"You are really bad a charades, Roswell," Salome said.

Roswell lit up.

 

Roswell, as Salome called him, went over the moon every times she did something that wasn't sitting still and staring at a wall. She yawn shortly after their third visit, which elicited a gasp and furious typing on a data pad.  The next time,  it brought her a bouncy ball and they played catch. Salome accidentally hit it in the face, but it just smiled like that was the best thing that had happened all week.

Salome was counting the cycles of lights on and lights out, trying to gain some semblance of time. The hours in a day were completely dependent on a planet's orbit, so she doubted they were on a twenty-four hour cycle seeing as her captors were from a different world. She didn't know how long she had truly been held, but so far she was fifty-two cycles into her imprisonment.

Roswell visited every other cycle or so,  and had her do seemingly benign things that were evidently the most important scientific discoveries of the century. Roswell was nice, though. Its black eyes appeared soulless at first, but its actions spoke for themselves. It kept track of which foods she liked, and which she didn't. It would let her walk up and down the hall without armed guards so she could stretch her legs. Eventually, Red and Blue stopped coming into the shower room with her, and she got to bathe in peace. It wasn't as if she was getting out through the drain, anyhow.

Roswell even brought her a brush, albeit one that had bristles of wire and looked like something one would use on a poodle. Still, the thought was nice.  She wasn't being mistreated, but she felt like a pet. Salome supposed that being held captive against her will was a form of mistreatment, but she also knew things could be much, much worse. Her existence was now only as significant  as what data they could get from her, and she wondered to what end that data was going to be used for. Surely they couldn't find anything ground breaking about humans from yawns and hair trimmings.

Her own professional curiosity was far from sated. She had a million more questions than she had answers. All she could observe was all she'd ever know, like how the grey aliens were more prone to express through touch than the avian ones, and Red and Blue would talk in soft rumbles to each other, but in hisses to Roswell.  The whys to these observations were hidden from her. She could theorize, but never test or experiment. It was maddening.

The war was another unknown. She had no idea if it was still raging or if one side had prevailed. If Shanxi got taken back or if Earth had been hit.

Salome still thought about escape, but it all seemed so hopeless. She didn't know where she was on the ship because she hadn't exactly been counting corridors when the hostiles first brought her to the cell. She kicked herself for not thinking ahead, but getting lost wasn't her only concern. Getting killed was almost a given if she got out of her cell and the long white hall way she took walks in.

Salome was a doer, it was hard to sit still and just let life happen to her. But for the first time in a long time, that was her only choice.

 

On the seventy-eighth cycle, Salome woke and ate the same as she had done the seventy-seven cycles before. The monotony was eating her alive, and even her once refreshing walks down the hall were tedious. She was buzzing with energy, and she had no outlet.  Roswell stood in the corner while she went about her morning rituals. Salome wondered what it had planned for that day. More push-up contests? Perhaps it would insist she ate something sour again to watch her reaction. Maybe it would hook her up to that odd machine that read her brain waves or whatever again. It was hardly any difference to her at that point.

Roswell was more excitable than usual, hopping from one foot to another while she brushed her hair.  She supposed that it had something new in store for her.

The door to the cell slid open, and a hostile walked in. It was a male with dark plates and red markings wearing a uniform she had never seen before. He eyed Salome up and down, like someone would appraise the quality of livestock.

The male spoke to Roswell, who chattered on while he nodded his head.  They both looked at her while they continued to converse, and Salome began to feel uneasy. Red and Blue came in the room, and the male said something to them. They nodded and came over to cuff Salome's hands in front of her. Salome tried to get a read on their faces, but couldn't make anything out. They motioned for her to stand, and Red put her hand on her shoulder and led her out of the room and down the hall. Blue and the male hostile followed behind, while Roswell ran up to Salome. As Red punched in the code that open the door at the end of the hall, and Roswell placed his hand over Salome's and gave it a pat. It was smiling, but the pat made it feel like she was being consoled. And if she was being consoled, what was about to happen to her?

"You're still awful at charades, buddy," she said.

Roswell chuckled and stood at the door while Red led Salome out of the hall. The ship they were in was practically all hallways, it seemed. They walked on for some time before reaching and elevator. The ride up was as painful as elevator rides could be, not in terms of awkwardness, but in apprehension. Salome had, in those seventy-seven cycle, gained a false sense of security. She forgot what it felt like to be in danger, which was quite a feat in of itself considering what she'd been through.

Finally, the elevators stopped as they reached their destination. The doors opened up to nothingness, or so it seemed. It took a moment for Salome to adjust to the sight of a room completely made of glass. Looking down, she could see her feet planted over shimmering stars and inky blackness, only a pane  of thick glass stopped her from slipping down to join them. The room was five times bigger than her cell, and a thousand times more lovely. Salome couldn't think of a single purpose such a room would have, but she was grateful for the sight.  

Salome glanced back up to see a person standing in the middle of the room. Their clothes were dark, and it took her a moment to distinguish their form from the shadows around them. When her eyes finally focused,  Salome shut her eyes tight and shook her head. What she saw didn't seem right.

Nevertheless, it was true.

Before her was a woman with blue skin in a dark,  low cut dress that hugged her form and covered her arms and shoulders. The woman was so similar to a human Salome thought her eyes were deceiving her. She walked over to Salome, gliding like her feet weren't even touching the ground. Salome had never seen such grace. When she came closer, she saw that the woman had a swooping crest instead of hair and a smile that made her feel like she'd known her all her life.

The woman spoke to the male hostile, and then to Red who handed her the key to the cuffs. The woman released Salome herself, and gave one final nod to the others. The hostiles left the way they came.

An orange planet came into view behind the woman's easy smile.  The sight of it all, the woman, the room, the planet, was almost too much. For seventy-seven cycles of who knows how many hours, all Salome saw was white and the same three people. Now, cosmic awe was all around her. She felt she could drown in it.

The woman took one of Salome's hands in the both of hers and squeezed tenderly. If Roswell had done the same, it would have unnerved her, even if he was nice to her. But something about this woman was borderline supernatural, angelic even. Her motives were as ambiguous and anybody else Salome had met so far, but she trusted her inexplicably.

Gently, the woman led Salome over to the center of the room and sat down, legs folded elegantly beneath her. Salome sat as well, glass cool on her exposed legs. She could hardly peel her eyes off of the figure in front of her. The woman took her hand again, and held it up in front of her. She touched one of her own finger tips to each of Salome's. They both had five. Their eyes met, and somehow Salome felt a smile tug at her lips.

The woman laced their fingers together and leaned forward. Her other hand came to rest on the side of Salome's face. Salome drank in the deep blue of her eyes before black obscured them like a solar eclipse.

 

Salome's eyes felt dry. She was sure she'd only blinked, but her body felt like she had just woken from a deep sleep. She turned her head to see that the orange planet that had just come into view was now a small dot in the distance.

_What just happened?_

Salome turned back to the woman, who had the same benevolent smile painting her lips. Then, she spoke in a melodic voice fit for an opera house.

"It seems we picked the perfect room for you, Salome Haw."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Language barriers are coming down! This is the longest chapter I've written for this fic, I hope it didn't drone on too much. Since I've changed some of the plot from my original outline, I'm adding an extra chapter to finish things up in a nice little bow. Thanks for the comments and kudos as always. I'm super motivated to finish this, which is something I never thought I'd get around to. Your support means the world to me.
> 
> \-------EDIT: I have a final on the 13th so the next chapter will not be up until the afternoon of that day because I haven't gotten a chance to edit it yet. Sorry for the delay!


	10. Armistice

Chapter 10-Armistice

Ever since the Mendel crew first picked up a herald of war, Salome had been experiencing  unpredictable events in rapid succession. The unknown seemed to be in competition with itself to see if it could get her to drop dead from astonishment. For a moment after the blue skinned woman spoke in perfect English, Salome thought the unknown might have just done it.

"I understand that this is a shock for you. Why don't you take your time-"

"How are you doing that?" Salome interrupted.

The woman smiled softly.

"Why don't we start with an introduction? I am Matriarch Iori, one of the Asari."

"The who?"Salome stammered.

"The Asari are my people. We all have what you would consider to be a feminine form. We breed by melding minds with our partners, and as such, we have the ability to form a psychic link with whatever species we chose."

Salome slapped herself in the face. Iori gasped and held Salome's hands down.

"That's no good, you mustn't hurt yourself," she said.

"I am hallucinating, I am dying, I-I...Oh, God, Suzie from the eighth grade will be happy to know she was right, I am _losing it_!"

Salome stood up abruptly and paced toward the glass wall to her right. She heard Iori rise to her feet, skirts rustling.

"Salome, you are not insane. I would have expected your mind to be in much worse shape considering what's been done to you, but I am happy to say you are of resilient stock."

Resilient. That was the wrong word. She wasn't resilient, she was lucky. The only way she made it has far as she had far was out of dumb luck. Salome slammed her head against the glass, partly hoping it would break and she could be sucked out into the void.

"So, you read my mind and now you can speak English?"

"Yes, that is how we have learned to communicate with all the galaxy's species. We Asari are a diplomatic sort , and nature has provided us with a means to accomplish negotiation with much more ease than most, " Iori said.

Iori leaned her shoulder against the glass. She looked at Salome with a mix of worry and pity.

"I heard you saved one of the Turian soldiers who destroyed your ship. The Turians being what you  know as 'hostiles'," she said.

"Yeah," Salome said, breath fogging up the glass.

"Tell me why you did that."

"Don't you already know?"

"Not in so many words, and I want to hear it from you."

"Did he make it?"

Salome pushed off the glass to face Iori.

"I'm afraid I don't know that. He was taken off the ship for surgery, though I am told he only lived to board this vessel because of you."

"That means jack shit if he died anyway," Salome said, voice rough.

"No, it doesn't mean jack shit," Iori said.

Even vulgarities sounded pleasant coming from her. Iori grabbed Salome's chin and forced her  keep eye contact.

"It's because you tried that you are where you are, and it's because you tried that we have a chance to reconcile. A chance to end this war. You are not the first human prisoner of the Turians, but you are the first to allow your mind to be opened to my link. With your help, we can negotiate with the other humans and take a chance at peace."

"You've seen what I've seen, Matriarch Iori. Do you really think peace is possible?"

"Do you?"

That was sneaky. Iori was forcing her to tap into the optimism that she had buried seventy some cycles ago. Salome wanted to say yes, she did believe it. Their species were not as different as they wanted to be, but war had a way of blinding people. Each side thought they were in the right, and believed that the other side was full of nothing but monsters. It was an easy mentality to fall into, and a difficult one to grow past.  She didn't know if diplomacy would work at this point, so she just told the truth.

"I want to believe it."

Iori let her grip on Salome's face loosen, and moved her hand to cup her cheek.

"Then let's go."

 

Two cycles later, Salome was sitting in her cell waiting for the updated version of the universal translator to finish installing on her ear piece. Iori had melded with her sisters, as she called them, to pass on Salome's native tongue. They had been working tirelessly to add English to the vast list of languages the translator could interpret.  Now that it was finished, it was only a matter of time until Salome was able to talk to someone who wasn't Asari. Not that she minded the Asari at all. They were all quite friendly and very interested in her when they weren't working. A few of them even brought her candy once. This was met with scrutiny from Roswell, whose name was evidently not Roswell, but Urlu.

Urlu was standing next to her bed,  fidgeting with his sleeve. Iori had informed her that he was very excited to be able to learn more about her race, and to get some answers on the more enigmatic things she did while under his inspection. Salome had told Iori she was a biologist, who passed the knowledge onto Urlu. He had given her a tray full of the red mutant vegetables she liked as some form of recompense for experimenting on a fellow scientist. Salome wasn't sure she understood the logic.

Near the door, as far away as he could be from her, was the captain of the ship, Arluk Feros. Arluk was Iori's partner, but he seemed to differ from her in every conceivable way. Salome would have chalked it up to the age old adage that opposites attract, but Iori was far too good for him in her opinion. Even after the Iori told him Salome was not a threat, he insisted she continue to stay in her cell.

Arluk was not partial to humans.

Iori spent most of her time on the Citadel with the other Asari diplomats but was evidently revered, or perhaps adored, enough for her to get her own glass mediation room aboard a Turian dreadnought. Salome was informed that the ship was called the _Thantos_ , and it was the flag ship of the Fifth Turian Fleet. Salome had been held in a part of the ship specifically designed to hold prisoners of war, and modified by Urlu for government sanctioned research on the human captives until they were set off elsewhere.

Iori had tried to meld with two other human prisoners, but they were too suspicious of her to give themselves over to the bond. Urlu himself contacted Iori on the Citadel and suggested she try with Salome. He told her Salome was his least aggressive subject, and the only one who would talk to him. Salome resolved never to tell him what she had been saying all that time.

One of the Asari, Taja, entered the room. She held up the small ear piece in triumph.

"All done," she said cheerfully.

"You guys are amazing, Taja. Tell everyone that for me, would you?" Salome said.

"You can tell them yourself after you're done with this meeting. We always love to see you stop by," Taja winked.

Salome smiled and took the ear piece.

"Let me help with that," Taja said sweetly.

She took over putting the device in place. Urlu looked like he wanted to jump out of the airlock.

"Everyone else has already had theirs updated, so this should be it."

Taja punctuated her sentence by pushing the on button.  Salome looked at the room's occupants.

"Somebody say something clever," she said.

"You sound like a drowning verran," said Arluk.

"Don't be rude, Captain. This interaction is historic. The first ever verbal communication between a salarian and a human. I am so honored to finally be able to converse with you, Salome Haw. I apologize profusely for-" Urlu was cut off.

"You'll have your time, right now we need to get on to business," Arluk said." Iori and the asari councilor have been pushing an armistice between our people for some time now. With you, we have a way to do it. Right now, we are docking on the Citadel. From there we will send a video feed to Arcturus station, and you will help us negotiate a meeting with your leaders. Any questions?"

"What's a varren?" Salome said.

Turian expressions were hard to read, but she was sure, absolutely certain even, that Arluk wanted to kill her.

She already knew the plan, and she also knew Arluk wasn't a fan. The turians were bitter about the last three months, and the humans would be just as bad. Salome wasn't looking forward to fighting tooth and nail to convince generals to be diplomats instead.

"Ready?" Iori entered the room.

"Ready," Salome said.

 

Salome felt as though she were standing at the precipice of a very steep cliff. She and Iori were getting ready to depart the ship onto the Citadel. Armed guards surrounded them, which made her feel like a target was on her back. Urlu chattered as they walked down the dark metal hallway to exit the _Thantos._

"I honestly feel like I've insulted you beyond reparation, Doctor Haw," he said.

"Don't worry about it," Salome said."It's almost befitting that I find out how my subjects own feel."

"Most of your subjects are plants, as you've told me. I'm sure they hardly mind your attentions."

"Would you feel apologetic to the other human prisoners, or just the ones with doctorates?"

"My research was deemed fundamental to the Turian Hierarchy, no way around it, and nothing to apologize for. However, to another scientist, it would have been humiliating to be reduced to-"

"I'm sure the others knew they were lab rats, and that position in of itself is degrading regardless of your occupation. My comfort is not any more important than theirs even if we share a field of study, Urlu."

Urlu blinked.

"Are all your kind prone to sermons on moral upstanding?"

"Science without morality is oxymoronic. What purpose does it have but to enhance life? If we forgo the value of life to further knowledge, the knowledge we gain has no value."

"Counterpoint; If one sacrifices a single person to learn something, the knowledge will still be acquired when that person is gone. Therefore, the trade off is equal."

"Is it really?"

"You don't think so?"

"I would abandon science altogether if I ever became so callous. Science must be held to a moral standard because power without a conscious is the most dangerous thing in the world."

"Your world or mine?"

They reached the exit hatch. Salome stared Urlu down. She didn't think he was a cruel person, he was obviously capable of compassion and thoughtfulness if her captivity was anything to go by. But he also had a blind spot. He didn't think what he was saying was inhumane, he just valued logic and discovery over all else. She was sure they could learn a lot from each other, but she also knew that was the only reason he bothered to apologize. It wasn't unforgivable, but it chilled her nonetheless.

"I'm just glad that they're separate," she said."I'll talk to you some other time."

Urlu grinned as a guard opened the hatch.

"I look forward to it, Doctor Haw. I'll show you what a varren is."

He turned and left.

"Keep your head down, Salome," Iori said."Word of your arrival has spread to the media, they all want a picture."

"Good thing I'm presentable," Salome said.

The Asari had managed to procure for her a long sleeved tunic the same royal blue as her long discarded jumpsuit. She wore black pants underneath it, which gave the outfit the overall feel of  the dress blues a normal navy officer would wear. Salome wanted to appear as human as possible, no false fronts, even if dressing as an Asari was more palpable to the public at large, as Iori had suggested.

The hatch opened to a stair case that led to the docking area. Salome hadn't seen the Citadel when they entered the orbit, Arluk didn't want her wandering the ship. It was a more impressive feat of engineering than anything she'd seen humans build. They had landed far above the ground level and the view was spectacular. The  buildings looked like grass blades from where she was, all steel and regal.

There was a hover car waiting for them close by, but there were journalist of many species Salome didn't recognize waiting behind a police line, shouting for her and demanding interviews.

"Citadel Security will be escorting us to the Citadel Tower, where you will meet the Council." Iori said."The only people that have updated translators are C-Sec and the members of the hearing. It won't be possible to converse with anyone else."

"I understand. Who is at the hearing?"

"Most of the Citadel diplomats and politicians will be speaking with the Council, they all love to say their two cents. The turian generals and high ranking commanders, as well."

"I see," Salome said." It would be best if there was a small group present when we contact Arcturus Station."

"Yes, only the Council, you, and I will be present for that."

"Is the Turian councilor the leader of their race?"

"No, the Turians have no single leader, they split the duty between their Primarchs, who govern only a few planets in the Turian territory each. However, the Council rules Citadel space. Whatever decision they come to will be law for the Turians, and every other Council species."

Iori and Salome shuffled into the hover car.

"But no pressure, right? " Salome slumped against her seat.

"Oh, there's immense pressure," Iori chuckled."And you'll be just fine."

It was easy to fall under the matriarch's spell. Salome desperately wanted to believe the soothing words she was told, but she knew her own race far too well to buy into it completely. Even if the Alliance had been sent the translator software along with an invitation to discuss peace, it didn't mean they would go about the situation as tactfully as they should. If there was one thing humans loved, it was righteous indignation and pointing fingers.

 

Salome tried her best to focus on the positive. For instance, Citadel Tower was a truly marvelous piece of architecture. She particularly appreciated the indoor greenery, but wasn't too fond of all the stairs. She was also pleased that the intimate meeting between the Alliance and the Council started off civilly, with the parliament thanking the Council for their invitation through the buzz of radio waves. She got nervous as the grainy video images of Admirals Drescher and Rodriguez narrowed their eyes when the Turian councilor spoke about the incident at Relay 314. She felt her stomach drop when Drescher interrupted him.

 "I'm sorry, did you just say you fired on an Alliance vessel without warning because of an agreement we knew nothing about?" she said.

"The Turian patrol did not know you were explorers from another race," he said evenly."They assumed you were fully aware of the law prohibiting the activation of the dormant relays."

"They didn't even try to contact us. Is that the law of this land? Fire at will?" Rodriguez said.

Salome couldn't find a bright side to where the conversation was headed. At least Rodriguez had great hair.

"Where is the commander who ordered the attack? I would like to speak with them about the protocol of their ship," Prime Minister Kalen said.

"Commander Zartak was killed in a firefight in the Hades gamma," the Turian councilor said."I would remind you that you are not the only ones who have lost a great deal during this...misunderstanding."

"Misunderstanding is an awfully light term, Councilor. Over six hundred of our best men and women are dead, and our only colony is in the middle of a rebuild it doesn't have the resources to sustain," Kalen said."Along with peace, the Alliance demands reparations to aid the process."

"You think you are in a position to demand things of the Council? No peace treaty has been signed-"

"Councilor Tarvosh, please take a moment," Iori interrupted."It's true, no treaty has been signed yet, so let's not lose sight of our goal."

The vitriol hanging in the air was palpable. Salome could see the Councilor Tarvosh's fist clench in anger from her spot on the far right of the rectangular conference table.  The giant monitor that showed the extensive Alliance parliament was fixed in the center of the room, facing the head of the table where the Council sat. No one had asked her to speak, and she wasn't sure she had the authority to interrupt and tell them they were all behaving like assholes. Well, she actually knew for a fact she didn't have the authority for that.

"We asked you here to join our galactic community," the Salarian Councilor said." We believe we have much to offer you, and vice versa. A symbiotic relationship."

"The Alliance cannot form an armistice with a nation we cannot rely on, or trust. Agree to the reparations, or we will have no peace," a cabinet member said.

Suddenly, her credentials didn't matter. Salome was not having it.

"No peace?" Salome raised her tone above what was considered an indoor voice.

All eyes were on her. She sat straight up, trying not to shake with the fury coursing through her veins.

"Prime Minister Kalen, you speak so dearly about the soldiers we've lost when you ask for reparations, but you ignore the thousands more we stand to lose if this war continues?"

Kalen was taken aback, brows knitted in disbelief.

"Doctor Haw, I understand you've been through a lot, but mind yourself. You are not a diplomat and certainly not-"

"Don't pull rank with me, I am speaking to you not as a drafted officer of the Alliance Navy, but as one of the millions of Earth's citizens you swore to protect and serve, who's interests you have promised to uphold while we search for a new place to call home. Who's interests do you claim to up hold while continuing this fight? Who are you protecting?"

Kalen went red. Drescher spoke up.

"I understand we have you to thank for the ability to communicate on this prestigious occasion," she said."I believe someone said something about a mind link you formed with one the Asari? How can we be certain there was no tampering with your thoughts and allegiances during this 'link'."

"It assure you it doesn't work like that," Iori said.

"So you say," another human said.

"I am not going to entertain your delusions of conspiracy here, Admiral. Do you find a fault in my logic, Prime Minister Kalen?"Salome said.

Kalen cleared his throat.

"I cannot see how the Alliance is at fault for this entire _misunderstanding_ , as it was inaptly put. Reparation not a farfetched request," he said.

"For a request, no. As an ultimatum, it is irresponsible," she said.

"Whose side are you on exactly, Doctor Haw?" a cabinet member asked.

"I'm on the side of reason!" Salome stood."I should not have to beg you not to send our men to their deaths. Agree to the treaty, and only then talk compensation. Your pride and resentment are clouding your judgment."

"Have you any idea what's been done to our people? Your people." Rodriguez said.

Images flashed before Salome's eyes, images of the MacArthur, once the greatest ship in human history. No memories she ever made there could be likened to greatness. 

"Over six hundred casualties, you said?" Salome's voice turned shrill. "Did you know one of them was named Elliot Riker? Did you know that she loved terrible music and could fly better than half your pilots? Do you know how she died, with half her head caved in? And no, none of you are responsible for that, but if you refuse a chance at peace in a war we will _not_ win, every loss we bear from this day on is blood on your hands. "

Salome couldn't stop a tear from slipping down her face as she glared knives into the members of the Alliance parliament.

"If you cost me anyone else I love, I will haunt you."

The room went silent. Salome had never been so disappointed and enraged in her entire life, and she couldn't bring herself to be ashamed of the words that came out of her mouth. Iori stood up.

"Salome, you have done more than your share in this state of affairs," she said."I can't imagine the toll it must take on you. I am going to escort Doctor Haw somewhere she can rest, and then I will return."

Iori crossed the room and took Salome by the hand. Salome didn't stop staring at the screen until Iori guided her out into the main hall. C-Sec officers dressed head to toe in riot gear were guarding the conference room. Iori waved two of them over.

"Why are you and I the only ones who see it?" Salome said.

"I think they are not letting themselves see it, just yet. They will air their grievances, and then we will start again." Iori said.

Salome could understand that. It wasn't the best way to go about doing things, but she could understand as long as they came to their senses. If not, she wasn't sure what she'd do, but she wouldn't sit still.

"Did I ruin it?"

"No, I think you provided a perspective they had left forgotten. I meant what I said, you have done more than enough.  C-Sec will escort you to a secure apartment we have prepared on the Presidium. I am told it has a lovely view."

"And I am sure you had everything to do with that," Salome said.

Iori smiled and squeezed Salome's hand.

"Take care, I'll see you soon," she said.

Iori went back into the conference room and the two C-Sec officers joined Salome, stationing themselves on each side of her. They were both Turians, a male and female, faces obscured by helmets.

"Are you guys expecting something to happen?" Salome asked, waving to their gear.

"It is always best to be prepared in high stakes situations." said the female.

"Have there been any threats?" Salome said.

"That is classified," she said.

"How many?"

Both officers looked at each other before dodging the question entirely, and began to walk to the elevator.  

"I've felt never safer," she said.

"Turians are not the species most receptive to humor, Doctor Haw," a deep, flanging voice said.

Another Turian in C-Sec uniform joined their stride. He was one of the tallest ones she'd seen, with pale grey plates and blue markings. He gave her a glance out of the corner of his eye, face neutral as he walked beside her. His eyes were a deep blue.

"I know you. You're from the _Thantos,_ " Salome said.

"I'm surprised I made an impression. I figured we must all look the same to you," he said.

Salome got the feeling he wasn't the warm and fuzzy type. His expression was unreadable as it had been on the hostile ship.

"Not at all. You took the injured soldier from me. You were the only one who would get close," she said.

"Yes, your arrival revealed some lapse in our protocol, Doctor Haw. No one was sure of what to do when the enemy came out of our own shuttle. Rest assured, we have remedied that lapse."

"Glad to help," Salome muttered.

The four of them entered the elevator. The tall Turian made a point of standing right beside her, despite her guards. The elevator jerked downward.

"My name is Castis Vakarian, I'm a detective here at C-Sec. I was on rotation aboard the _Thantos_ when you arrived, and was sent back here shortly after. I assumed they'd have you killed, really, but now you're here, keeping the peace."

Lifting one hand, Castis gestured all about him. He never turned to look at her square on, just gave her assessing glances out of is peripheral when he wanted to see her reaction. He was sizing her up, and he was certainly intimidating. However, Salome had no reason to care about his opinion, and didn't resolve to make a good impression. He could hate her if her wanted to.

 "Quite the anomaly," he rumbled.

Castis' voice would have been pleasant if he wasn't so terrifying. He gave off a vibe of parental disappointment with every sentence he uttered.

"I'm nothing if not inconsistent," Salome said.

 The male guard choked off a chuckle. Castis radiated dissatisfaction.

"Still, you have done more than anyone of your occupation would be excepted to in a war. Your perseverance is commendable. If would be best if a truce could be made. I have two children, and I don't want them growing up in a war. The eldest is still a few years away from enlistment age, but he would be a terrible soldier."

Castis' eyes went out of focus as if he were recalling a sour memory. The elevator shuttered to a stop as they reached the ground floor. Salome and her guards stepped off, but Castis remained behind.

"Not coming?" Salome said.

"I just wanted to have a good look at you, " he said.

For the first time, they looked at each other head on. Salome stood still, confused. He was poker-faced, even for a Turian. She couldn't tell exactly what he meant by that statement, not even if he intended it to be an insult.

"He made it by the way," Castis said."The solider you saved."

The doors closed.

"Let's go out the back way, the media is swarming," said the female guard.

She gave Salome a shove from where she was planted, eyes still fixed on the elevator doors.  They headed out a back entrance and into an armored car. Salome sat squashed between her two sentries staring blankly at the floor of the car. Then, a smile found its way across her face even as the male guard's shoulder dug into hers on a sharp turn. Before long, she was laughing, content.

 

Iori was Salome's favorite person on the Citadel. The apartment was on the very top floor of a huge sky scraper, with a balcony full of potted plants. Alien potted plants. Salome giggled with delight when she saw them. The rest of the place was just as agreeable. The ceiling was high, the bed was huge, and the sofa was plush. It felt like a five star hotel, although she wished her stay had been under better circumstances.

Salome belly flopped onto the bed and buried her face into the pillows. She found herself reliving her conversation with, or rather, her outburst at the Alliance Parliament. There were less caustic ways to get her point across, she supposed, but at the same time she felt that career politicians needed to be yelled at every now and again. Political office had a way of cutting its occupant off from the common man, and sometimes from common sense itself. She only hoped Iori hadn't lied. She prayed she hadn't made things worse.

There was a knock at her apartment door. Salome begrudgingly removed herself from the siren call of her bed and walked out the bedroom and through the living room to the front door.

"It's us," the female guard said through the door.

"How do I know it's _really_ you," Salome inquired.

"We don't care for jokes, remember? It's a Turian thing," she said.

Salome unlocked the door. The guards would be with her throughout her stay on the Citadel, ever present and ever near.

"Tell that to your friend," Salome said.

She tilted her head to the male, who stiffened.

"What's up?"

"We have word from the meeting. Matriarch Iori said to tell you that the Alliance and Turian Hierarchy have agreed to a cease-fire and that the U.S.S Howard will be coming to the Citadel to discuss an armistice."

Salome's knee felt weak and she leaned against the doorway.

"Really?" she breathed.

"Yes, really," the guard said, deadpan."Matriarch wants you to rest, so she'll stop by in the morning."

"There is someone aboard who requested to speak to you," the male, voice baritone and rough.

"Who?" Salome said.

"I believe Matriarch Iori said the name was Chang."

Salome's knees gave out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Golly, that was a monster edit. And a ton of plot to cover, but we are getting there! The next and final chapter will be up in a couple of days! I never would have written this far without your guys' support. Thank you so much!


	11. Secrets of the Universe

Chapter 11- Secrets of the Universe

The U.S.S. Howard was humanity's biggest ship in history. Two days after the cease-fire went into effect, the massive ship landed on the Citadel as indiscernibly as flea on a St. Bernard. Appropriately, this was how many of the native Citadel races perceived the Alliance's arrival. Not to name names, but Salome decided internally never to allow a Turian and a human to be alone if she could help it. Not as things were currently. Even as they walked down the docking area to reach the Howard's entrance, she could feel her extensive C-Sec guard detail become rigid with concealed umbrage. Very poorly concealed umbrage, and that was even with the benefit of wearing helmets.

The two C-Sec officers from the night before were still with her. She got the feeling their extended time together wasn't helping their opinion of her race. She was, as Suzie from the eighth grade once said, only slightly leaning towards tolerable.

As they got closer, Salome could see a two guards near the door, up the stairs. After two months in captivity, Salome became aware in that moment that her eyes had grown unaccustomed to the sight of a human silhouette. It brought about an odd nostalgia, one which she never assumed the human race would ever inspire in her. She wanted to see Vendall and the others.

Salome climbed the steps to the entry way. The two human guards blocked her path halfway.

"Doctor Haw," one said."Armed visitors are not allowed while peace discussions are underway."

Matriarch Iori and the Asari Councilor were currently aboard the Howard speaking with Prime Minister Kalen and the Admirals. Everyone else involved was present through video feed, including the other two Council members. Salome was honestly surprise the Asari Councilor would put herself in such a situation, after all she was one of the important people in the galaxy. Although, she conceded, if there were any race humanity would welcome with open arms it would be the Asari, and they were probably well aware of that.

"They aren't visitors, they're a guard detail," Salome said."Evidently I might not be so popular with my fellow man."

The guard on the left stooped to whisper in her ear.

"Do you really think you're safer with them than your fellow man?" he said.

"C-Sec is an agency independent of the Relay 314 Incident, unlike the Alliance Navy," she said."They are sworn to uphold the law, and political assassinations are against the law. I feel perfectly safe with them."

He shot a glare over her shoulder.

"Only one," he said.

"Who are you to make orders like that?" she said.

"I am supposed to keep this vessel secure, that is what I'm doing."

"You think they're going to take the Howard down from the inside out?"

"I don't claim to know that."

"Then start acting like it. I'm taking two," Salome shouldered passed him.

She half expected him to stop her, but he allowed the two guards to follow her into the ship.

"Tell First Lieutenant Chang I'm here," she said as the doors closed.

In honest truth, Salome could understand where he was coming from. She had ended up with six guards out of Iori's concern, and they were all Turians, who as a species seemed to flock to police work. However, there were lines that had to be drawn in the sand. Some behavior could not be acceptable even if it was understandable.  Citadel Security was a completely reasonable choice to guard a public figure, no matter how brief that status would last, and she couldn't condone the thought that they couldn't do their job properly because they were Turians.

Salome shot a looked over at the two officers who had followed her. Both males, now, and one of them was from the night before. She recognized his build and height even if she couldn't see his face.

"You still with me?" Salome chuckled.

"Until you no longer require our aid," he said.

"Well, then just for your sake I hope this all gets sorted today," she laughed.

"Still a joker, Doctor Haw," a voice called.

Salome saw Chang standing at the end of the hall. She smiled when they locked eyes and walked over to her with the same commanding grace she had aboard the MacArthur. The wound on her cheekbone had scared over now. They shook hands, which almost felt too formal considering their history, but Chang was her superior officer and this was a military setting.

"You look well," Salome said."Love the scar."

"I'd look an awful lot like dead, if it weren't for you," Chang said.

Chang motioned for her to follow her, letting her gaze linger on Salome's guards a little too long to be friendly, but she didn't say anything.  She lead her into an elevator and pushed the button to head to the crew deck.

"The men were kind enough to offer to clear out a room in the living quarters, but we won't need that long," Chang said. "Drescher commands the Howard now, and I'm still her right hand man. As such, I was able to pull a few strings for you. She concealed that it was nothing too disagreeable. She also offers her apologies for, and I quote, 'questioning your allegiances.'"

She wasn't sure how she felt about that. Salome hadn't felt like herself in some time, but she resented the implication that she was a puppet and that Iori had made her that way. She liked to think that Drescher was realizing her mistake after spending some quality time with the matriarch, who by all accounts didn't have insidious bone in her body.

"Well, I'm not sure I accept that, sorry," Salome said.

"I don't blame you," Chang said."I've known Kastanie for years, but that was out of line. You've risked too much for people you didn't even know to be treated like less than a hero."

 "Hero is not a term I'd use," Salome said."Plenty of people would have done what I did if they had the means."

"Give yourself a break, Salome Haw. Be proud."

Chang clapped her on the shoulder and the elevator arrived.  The doors slid open.

"I am proud to have served by you in your brief but remarkable stint as a Systems Alliance officer.  And having said that, nothing would please me more than never seeing you on a war ship again."

Chang gave Salome's shoulders a squeeze before letting go, and stepping out of the elevator.

"That gentleman over there is Officer Falkner, he can take you anywhere you'd like after you stop by the conference room down the hall," Chang said.

Officer Falkner saluted from his post in the middle of the hall.

"What's in the conference room?" Salome asked.

"A consol with a video stream from Arcturus. I'm sure you can make a guess who's waiting to see you."

With an elegant spin on her heel, Chang walked back into the elevator.

"Thank you for this," Salome said.

"The absolute least I could do."

Before the doors closed, Chang gave her a salute. Salome felt honored that someone she admired as much as First Lieutenant Chang would think she deserved such an act of respect.

 She followed Falkner into the conference room. A table with a laptop sat on the far side of the room. Falkner guided her to sit down and leaned over her shoulder to press a few buttons.

"I'll give you some privacy," he said."Should they..."

He pointed to the two C-Sec officers by the door. Salome would have liked this conversation to be completely private, but she couldn't have the only two Turians aboard standing out in the hall.

"They're fine where they are, thank you Officer," she said.

Falkner left the room and shut the door.

"Sal?" a voice buzzed.

Marianne Downey's face appeared on the screen. She had her hair pulled back into a tight bun, like she always did. Lines of worry crease her face, her eyes held an expression of disbelief. Salome reached out to her, and her hand met the screen. Marianne placed her hand over the same spot.

"Mari," Salome said.

"They said you were dead. Even Vendall, he said the ship went down," Marianne said, voice low.

"It did, but I wasn't on it," Salome said."Caught a ride with an alien."

Marianne let out laugh that was more meant to relieve anxiety than convey amusement. Salome felt a tear slide down her face.

"I missed you so much," Salome said.

"I did, too," Marianne said."I feel like I'm dreaming. I thought we lost you and Elliot, I'm so glad to be wrong."

Salome swallowed thickly. Just hearing Elliot's name made her want to cry and shut down.

"Are you okay?" Salome asked.

"Yeah, Arcturus never got hit. Earth neither. The Second fleet took Shanxi back, I'm not sure if you knew."

"I've heard bits and pieces, hard to keep it all straight."

There was a sound of a door shutting through the feed, and Marianne turned her head to the direction of the sound.

"Well, I'd tell you all about it, but I've got something more important to show you," Marianne said with a smile.

Marianne dropped her hand from the monitor and scooted her chair to the edge of the screen. On the other side of the screen, a hand came to rest on the desk before the rest of the individual leaned into view.

"Hey, Salome," said Vendall.

"Tatum!" Salome shouted.

More tears found their way down her face.

"I can't believe it's you," he said.

"Oh, it's me alright," she laughed.

"I thought we lost you," he said.

"You'll have to try harder next time. Blow up two ships."

"Hey," Marianne butted her way back into full view, "aren't you supposed to be with the big wigs talking peace right now?"

Salome waved her hand dismissively.

"It's all policy now, can't do anything about that. I was only there to grease the wheels, so to speak. And I'm not sure how much I helped with that." 

"We can't stay long ourselves, still kind of busy over here," Marianne said.

"I'm due back for Earth this evening," Vendall said."I have approval to get a teaching license."

"Hanging up your explorer hat?" Salome said.

"I think I'm better suited to the theoretical," he said. "The spotlight's your place, Sal."

"I'll be very happy when people forget my name," Salome said." I can study space plants and eat weird veggies with my alien friends."

"Are you making friends?" Marianne said."I would imagine its still pretty divided out there."

"You're not wrong, but it won't be that way forever. I have a Salarian who wants to study me, gotta start somewhere."

"I don't know what that is, but if you're safe I'm happy for you," Vendall said.

"Are you going to stay on the Citadel?" said Marianne.

"For the mean time. I don't know where I'll stay in the end, though," Salome said

"You'll end up where you think people need you," said Vendall." Try to keep your own interests in mind, alright?"

"I'm not a push over, Tatum," Salome sulked.

"No, you're just a softie who doesn't think you're as important as the people around you," he said sternly.

Salome gasped, affronted. How dare he?

"Well, our time's about up. Tell Chang thank you for me, I'm so glad I got to see you," Marianne said.

"Will do, I'll get in touch again somehow," Salome said.

"I want to know everything," Marianne said."I know you've seen some shit, Haw. Talk to me if you ever need anyone, okay?"

"Okay."

"See you again, Sal," Vendall smiled.

"Promise."

"You're one of my best friends and I owe you everything. Feel free to pester me whenever," he said.

Salome laughed and the screen went dark. She saw her smiling reflection on the monitor. She felt good for the first time in a long time.

Salome rose from her seat and exited the room.

"All done?" Officer Falkner asked.

"Yeah."

"Chang asked me to take you to the infirmary, and then we can go where you want," he said.

"The infirmary?"

"We have some wounded from Shanxi aboard. The Asari offered free prosthetics for the ones who lost limbs,"

"Well, that's generous. They can make them for humans?"

Falkner shrugged.

"I don't pretend to know half the stuff going on around here, ma'am," he said."All I know is one of them wanted to see you, and Chang thought that'd be okay."

Her joy from seeing her friends wilted, and a familiar fear sat heavy in her stomach.

"Do you know who?"

"I'm not allowed to speak on the matter," he said.

"That makes no sense."

"Like I said, don't know half of it."

Salome followed Falkner down the hall and past corridor after corridor. God, the Howard was huge. They reached a double door at the end of a hallway with a door buzzer and security camera. Falkner rang the buzzer and the doors opened after a moment.

They walked down to the nurse's station and waiting for them was Edgar, lively as ever.

"Doctor Haw!"

Salome had definitely not been expecting Edgar, but she was ecstatic to see him and ran right into his one armed embrace. He gave her a tight hug, one that made it feel like he was really, truly there.

"Ed, you're still kicking," Salome said.

"I had some help," he chuckled.

"I'm so glad you called for me, I wanted to see you," she said."Your spine's all better?"

"Yup, fixed the fracture in an eight hour surgery on Earth. Good as new."

Edgar twisted his torso to illustrate the fact.

"Still, they shouldn't have sent you to Shanxi. You should have been granted some leave," Salome said.

"Oh, I never went to Shanxi. I'm the odd man out around these parts. Sure I need a new arm, but I didn't earn the honor from my work on Shanxi."

He pulled Salome over to a quiet part of the hall.

"Salome, listen. You're not going to like this," he said in a whisper.

Fists formed at her sides, nails digging into her palms.

"Go on," she said.

"When we got off the MacArthur, we went over to the U.S.S Abrams, which evacuated the Hades gamma. We ended up on Earth because of all the wounded, except Vendall and Chang who went to Arcturus. I got scheduled for surgery and Alexander...They sent him to Shanxi to work as a ground soldier. He had his own unit because of his experience in special ops."

"After everything, they sent him _back_?" Salome said.

"I wanted to storm out of the PACU when I found out. I wanted to haul him over my shoulder like he did for me and get him somewhere safe. But it was too late. I tried to be optimistic but, sure enough..."

Salome dug her fingers into his shoulder.

"Ed, please."

"He lost his leg."

"But he's alive?"

"Yeah, he's still with us. Mostly. Do you want to see him?"

She did, but she wasn't sure how it would go. Alexander was a patriot, and she had a feeling he wouldn't be pleased about her role in the armistice with the Turians. If he found out she saved one of them right after they slaughtered the occupants of the MacArthur, he would probably throw her out of the room himself, leg or no leg. Even so, she couldn't ignore him. He didn't deserve that. If he wanted to hate her, that was his prerogative.

However, her two guards would have to stay outside for this one, and she told them as such.

Salome nodded to Edgar and he led her to Alexander's door.

"Knock, knock," he said.

"You know you never actually knock? You just say it out loud."

"I'm down an arm, be kind to me. Guess who's here to see you."

"Salome?"

Slowly, she walked past Edgar into Alexander's room. He was laying in bed, the curtains open. An empty space was noticeable under the blankets where his left leg should have been. Alexander sat up and ran his fingers through his hair. It had grown longer since she'd last saw. His facial hair had grown into a scruffy beard.

"Alexander," she said, "going for the lumberjack look this fall?"

"Good God, it's really you. Uh, have a seat if you want."

The only chair in the room was pulled up to the head of the bed, armrests touching the headboard. If she sat there she would be inches away from his shoulders and head.

"You can pull that back if I smell or something. Ed likes to sleep there," Alexander said.

"You smell fine," Salome said.

She scooted the chair back enough to be appropriate, but not far enough to offend him.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

Alexander's hands, at first laid loosely in his lap, curled and uncurled while he examined them.

"I suppose so," he said," by comparison."

They, she and Alexander, were more alike than either of them would ever admit. His response reminded her of something Vendall had once said to her.

"You can't act like you're okay just because you don't have it the worst," Salome said."I mean, I'd be happy if you were trying to look on the bright side, but I don't think that's it. I think you've decided you don't have the right to feel damaged because you made it out alive when others didn't."

Edgar had perched himself on the windowsill and gave Alexander a dry look.

"Ed, not now," he said.

"Didn't say anything," Edgar shrugged.

Alexander frowned while Edgar stared him down. Salome had a feeling Ed had been saying something similar, and Alexander hadn't taken it well.

"Look, Salome," Alexander turned back to her," I heard what you did for that hostile. The whole Alliance is talking about it."

"Oh, great," Salome slumped into her chair.

Good thing she had body guards.

"At first I was pissed. After everything they did, it's only right they should have died like our men did back on the MacArthur. But, if you hadn't save it, you'd be dead, and we wouldn't be talking peace right now, so bright side."

Upon uttering the words "bright side," Alexander preformed the least energetic version of jazz hands Salome had ever seen.

"I've never been good at handling anger, I'm sure you've noticed. Don't be kind, I know you have. The military didn't help with that. You're supposed to keep it all locked away, soldier on, as they say. When you do talk about it, it's with people just as emotionally stunted as you are. All that ever gets said about the enemy is what kind of old testament punishment they deserve. Well, we aren't in the old testament anymore."

"Yeah, new testament god is chill," Ed said.

"We can't beat them," Alexander continued."They have an entire galactic community to back them up. We need to cut our losses and focus on the future."

His current appearance also seemly  reflected an inside change, but Alexander didn't appear like he'd changed for the better. He looked worn, and broken. He probably was.

"I also think the same thing," Salome said," but I know that must have been a hard conclusion for you to reach. You've seen more than I have, Ander. It's hard to let go of hatred induced by fear. It feels more unfair than other kinds."

"You should've been a psychologist," he said.

Alexander smiled but it didn't reach his eyes. She had a feeling that he wanted to be genuine, but the numbness was holding him down.

"I would have caused more harm than good in that profession, I think," she said." I hear you're getting a new leg?"

"Yeah," he said.

He shifted in the bed with a wince. Edgar walked over to him and raised the head of the bed so that Alexander could lean back on it. Edgar fussed with the pillow until Alexander grabbed his hand and gave it a squeeze.

"Yeah, the offer was for everyone wounded on Shanxi. A blood bath that place turned out to be. Drescher wanted everyone to come up here, less cost on the Alliance. Not many of us actually wanted to, though. The Citadel is a big unknown for most of humanity. I convinced them to let Ed come, even though he wasn't there."

"He yelled at them."

"I raised my voice."

"You made a lot of good arguments, though."

"They're moving me to the hospital tomorrow. Should be interesting."

"We're gonna get matching hot pink artificial limbs. We'll be the talk of the town," said Edgar.

"I doubt they'll let us customize," Alexander said.

"That's your concern? I thought you'd draw the line on the hot pink."

"Hard to make any more of a fashion statement than you already have," Alexander tugged on Edgar's loose sleeve.

Edgar barked his signature laugh and Alexander smiled gently, and it finally reached his eyes.

"Have you guys always been close? It seemed like you knew each other back on the MacArthur. Like, before the Patel," she said.

"We were cadets in the academy together," said Edgar."Ander was so fresh and vibrant back then."

"Now I'm rotten and dull," Alexander said.

"You're getting better," Edgar said.

Edgar's hand rested on Alexander's cheek.

Oh. _Oh._ They were actually very close. Salome couldn't believe she'd missed it.

"Oh, my god," she murmured

"Don't freak out, this is a new development," Edgar said.

"Took me several years and a near death experience to wear him down," Alexander said.

"Two near death experiences."

"Salt in the wound, Ed."

"I'm so fucking happy for you guys," Salome's voice wobbled."Do you like alien plants? I want to give you a gift."

She felt her eyes misting up. Alexander's mental state was worrying her, but she was relieved to see he had someone he trusted and adored helping him along. It was almost symbolic, really. Life was moving on, despite it all. She leaned over and buried her face in the mattress.

"I'm going to bring you so many fucking plants."

Alexander hesitantly gave her a pat on the head.

"I had no idea you were so invested," he said.

Salome's reply was muffled.

"We don't need a gift," Edgar said."We're just happy to see you."

"We don't even know what alien plants eat," Alexander said.

Edgar patted Alexander's hand sweetly.

"Plants don't eat, they absorb," he said."Right?"

"Maybe I'll get you a really nice looking rock," she said.

"Better idea, bring us hot pink paint," Edgar said.

Alexander shot Salome a look that told that was the last thing she should ever do.

"I seriously am so happy for you  guys. I'm going to head out and let you rest," she said rising to her feet."There's some stuff I have to take care of. I'll visit the you in the hospital."

"It was good to see you, Salome," Alexander said.

Salome sat on the edge of the bed and leaned over to give him a hug.

"I'm sorry I was so awful to you," he said returning the embrace.

"I forgive you. I'm sorry I didn't bother to get to know you," she said.

Forgiveness was something Salome had realized was in short supply, both in herself and her people. Forgiveness was also something that needed passing around, now more than ever. She had to change that about herself before she asked anyone else to do the same.

 

Salome stepped out of the room and rejoined Falkner and her guards.

"Where to next?" Falkner asked.

"The exit," Salome said."You guys can keep me updated on the meeting, right?"

"Of course," said a guard.

"Alright, let's go."

They left the way they came. The two human guards were still there, and Salome nodded to them, civil.

An armored car pulled up on the docking bay and her guards corralled her inside. 

"Message from Matriarch Iori," a guard said, looking at a holographic display on his forearm.

"She says that the proceedings are going well. She does not know if the Hierarchy will agree to reparations, but a tentative agreement is being drafted."

Salome felt her shoulder sag with relief from an intangible weight. The nightmare was ending. For a long time she felt like she had been trapped in a vortex with no way of getting out or slowing down. Maybe she could move on now, like Ed and Ander had.

"Do you want to go to your quarters?" asked the male from the night before.

Salome snapped out of her spell.

"Huh?"

 "Well, it's just that you look rather drained," he said.

She leaned over to looked at his obscured face.

"That's very thoughtful of you, but there's someplace I'd like to go," she said.

"Where to?"

"I don't know, but you do," she said.

He cocked his head at her in confusion.

"Where's the best view in the whole city?"

 

For the second time in few hours, Salome was rushed through the back exit of the Citadel Tower.  The whole operation was low-key. They didn't want to get snagged into a conversation with some politician or reporter. This was made difficult given that Salome was literally the only human being currently roaming the Citadel.

"To be safe, we'd better use the stairs," said the guard.

They shuffled along the wall to reach the stairwell entrance. Salome almost wanted to giggle from the secrecy. She was pleasantly surprised they had gone along with her request. The new guard had said dryly that there was a nice view from her apartment, but the one who had been with her since the hearing told her he knew exactly where to go.

Simply stepping through the threshold was enough to make Salome dizzy. The only stairs she'd had to climb since the MacArthur were the ones to get on and off ships, and those were in open space, under direct day light. The context of being closed off in a stairwell immediately sent her back two months. She could feel the ache in her shoulder from the weight of the injured Turian, smell a metallic waft of blood in the air.

"Do you want to use the elevator instead?" the friendly guard asked."It is a long climb."

Salome gripped onto the guard rail and put her foot on the first step.

"I could use the exercise," she smiled.

It wasn't as if she could avoid stairs her whole life. She chose to think of it as immersion therapy. They climbed several, _several_ flights of stairs before Salome asked to take a break, from physical rather than emotional exhaustion.

"This is why I need the exercise," she said.

She rested her back against the wall.

"We've cleared thirty stories, I think that's-"

"We've what?"

"Looks like you're in better shape than you thought," he said.

"How many more? Wait, don't answer. That'll just make it worse," she said.

"I can carry you," he said.

"That would be humiliating," she said.

"It would only make things fair."

"How is carrying me up hell knows how many-"

Wait.

Salome sensed something about his manner that made her think there was another meaning to that statement. His hand curled tightly at his side before he released it, and refused to make eye contact. His voice was changed by the microphone in the helmet, she couldn't be sure if it was familiar. But he was familiar, now that it occurred to her. His height and build. Only one way to know.

She turned to the other guard, who was a step below her.

"You can go."

"But, Doctor Haw..."

"I am allowed to chose if I want police protection, and also how intrusive I want it to be. Right now, I feel like I would be most comfortable with only one guard, alright? You can tell whoever you need to what I just said."

He shrugged in defeat, giving up without really trying.

"Alright."

The other guard stepped down to the landing and exited on what was presumably the twenty-ninth floor.

She turned back to the other one.

"Take off your helmet," she said.

His gaze had returned to her while she ordered the other guard to leave. He was tense all about his shoulders. Wordlessly, he raised his hands to his helmet to remove it. She had seen him carry out this action before, she knew, but with a different helmet and in a different time.

Pale grey plates with white markings and dark brown eyes lighter in the center than at the edges.

"Why didn't you say anything?" she said.

The brown-eyed Turian shifted his weight from one foot to another.

"I wanted to see what you were like," he said.

Salome closed her eyes when he spoke. The particular gravel of the rumble and his pitch were the same. She stepped up the stairs to pass him and kept climbing. He followed, helmet still tucked under his arm.

"I asked to be on your guard detail when I rotated back to C-Sec," he said, calling after her hastened steps."They almost didn't let me, but Captain Vakarian allowed it. The day you saved me, it's all cloudy and jumbled. I wanted to know if I had, I don't know, made you out to be something you weren't. Put you on a pedestal. But you're the same. "

She kept moving, offering a hum in response.

"You saved my life," he said." You had no reason to, but you did. You had plenty of reasons to leave me to die. We walked passed those reasons on the way to the shuttle. I made you step in them."

Turians had stony facial expression, but their voices gave them away. The flanging undertone of his vocals raised as he continued on, seemingly indicative of anguish.

"I wanted to know what you were like, too," she said.

She stopped and pivoted to face him. He stopped as well, a few steps below her. His brow plates knitted together.

"The whole time we were trapped in that shuttle, that was what was on my mind."

"How can you not hate me?" he asked, voice a whisper.

"What's your name?"

"Sergeant Icarus Invictus."

"How can I hate you if I don't know who you are, Sergeant Invictus?"

She turned and went on. He stood still for a moment before following after her. Reaching the top of what she now knew was a forty seven story building was an accomplishment Salome could pat herself on the back for. The wind made a mess of her hair, and chilled her a little, but it was worth it. She could see the arms of the giant space station stretching out over many kilometers, and see the glistening of steel in the sun, and the twinkling of apartment lights turning off and on. She could see the hustle and bustle of a million lives swarming in the traffic and hear the chatter of insults and good wishes alike becoming indistinguishable babble by the time they made their way to her ears.

And to her left, she could see an man who had himself seen too many things. She saw someone who was not her enemy or her friend, but was all the same very important to her. She saw someone she wanted to know, and someone who may have wanted the same if his nervous appraisal of her countenance was anything to go by. She liked what she saw there.

He was right about the view.

 

Two days of deliberations saw a peace treaty formed between the Systems Alliance and the Turian Hierarchy. The Hierarchy had agreed to compensation, but with no interest. It was slightly petty, but it was a start.

In fact, new beginnings were underway all around Council Space. Iori was made the Asari ambassador to humanity.  No one challenged that decision.

The Turians had salvaged the wreckage of the MacArthur from its crash site on Trebin in the Hades gamma, and the bodies of the crew were sent to Earth.

Salome and everyone who had ever been aboard the RSV Mendel were in attendance of Elliot Riker's funeral. Cyrus and Mike brought flowers. Salome brought Mike a new knife. Chang had only been able to come briefly, but she gave small speech on Elliot's bravery in the Hades gamma. Lisa apologized for not trying to stop Salome from running to her supposed death, but Salome had never been angry about that. She was finding herself less and less angry about most things as time went on. A glance at Alexander in his black suit, freshly retired from military service, and holding his soon-to-be-husband's hand revealed he might have been feeling the same way. The dub step that Elliot loved was just as awful as Salome remembered, but she and Marianne still found a way to dance to it. Elliot would have wanted them to dance.

Vendall didn't dance, but he did his bit of encouraging from the side lines. He also brought a gift for Salome.

"To keep the chip dust off your fancy Citadel carpet," he had said.

In truth, it was more of a return than a gift.

 

Salome leaned on the railing of her Citadel apartment's balcony, surrounded by foliage of many different origins. Urlu had given her most of them. She worked with him at the same lab, and occasionally she gave classes to the C-Sec cadets about interacting with humans. The cadets needed this kind of training for all  Council species, and Salome found she was very well suited to the work.

Her door bell rang. Salome turned on her heels and worked her way through the kudzu she deeply regretted saving from her Mendel garden.

She opened the door to a cup of coffee offered out to her.

"I don't know if it's any good because I can't drink it," Icarus said.

Salome took the cup and gave it a sip.

"And now I can't tell you because I've burned off all my taste buds," she said.

Icarus chuckled. She'd never heard him outright laugh, but he was on of the most good-humored Turians she was in acquaintance with. Granted, that was probably because the rest were politicians.

"Thank you, Icarus. Come inside, but don't step on Ronaldo."

Ronaldo the roomba was at that moment trying to drive himself into the wall next to the door.  If he formed a dent there, Salome would honestly be proud, even with her security deposit.

"How was work?" he asked, stepping his around the mangeld robot.

"Good, they were all kind of young this time. Very curious," she said.

They walked over to sit on the couch.

"That reminds me, I never apologized for how I behaved on the shuttle," Icarus said."I very sorry for touching your...stuff."

"I am _begging_ you to rephrase that," she said.

"Your, ah, fringe?"

"Hair."

"Yeah, that."

"You were actively dying, I hold no grudge."

She took another sip of her coffee. He got it black, literally nothing in it but beans and water. The sentiment was endearing, though. It was also endearing how he tended to fiddle with his hands whenever a silence fell over them. He wasn't comfortable with silences, he probably thought it meant she was bored. She hoped he'd learn one day that she would never be bored of him. Maybe they would grow apart, but Icarus Invictus was someone she would always care about.

He'd never given her a reason to stop.

"Shall we continue sharing our life's stories?" she asked him.

"Sure, it's my turn, right?"

Salome nodded and tucked her legs under her, facing Icarus.

"What do you want to know?" he said.

The sun made his plates look paler than they really were, and his white facial markings blended into their surroundings. His brown eyes were lit up, almost golden. She smiled.

"The secrets of the universe," she said," and your favorite color."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that takes the cake for the longest chapter I've ever written. Probably very fitting that it's the last. I posted this when I only had seven chapters written and I thought no one would ever read it, but I'm so happy to have been wrong. Thank you for every comment and kudo, they kept me going. Special shout out to Gaudi who left a comment on nearly every chapter. Your legacy lives on in Ronaldo the roomba.
> 
> Love you all, and thanks again!

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. This is my first fic ever, and I've actually written the majority of it. However, I've been spending a lot of time on it, at first for fun, but now considering how much time it takes to write, I think I'll only finish it if some people actual like reading it. So, if you liked it, please leave a comment and let me know. Constructive criticism welcome and encouraged. Comments keep me motivated! I'll be posting the next chapter soon.


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